In the twelfth century the Basque fisherman of Biarritz used to hunt whales with deadly efficiency. When the whales sensibly moved away, the Basques … - Clive James

The Holocaust would have been unimaginable without the Nazi Party; the Nazi Party would have been unimaginable without Hitler; and Hitler’s rise to power would have been unimaginable without the unique circumstances that brought the Weimar Republic to ruin. To hear Goldhagen tell it, mass murder was all set to go: a century-long build-up of eliminationist anti-Semitism simply had to express itself. But the moment when a historian says that something had to happen is the moment when he stops writing history and starts predicting the past.

Among artists without talent Marxism will always be popular, since it enables them to blame society for the fact that nobody wants to hear what they have to say.

I see the pain on your face when you say the word intellectual, because it has so many syllables in it.