Theories are cheap. Anyone can invent one.

In psychology, theories are cheap. Anyone can invent one .Progress happens when theories are tested, supported, and corrected by empirical evidence, especially when a theory proves to be useful - for example, if it helps people to understand why half the people in their country seem to live in a different moral universe.

J, Haidt, The righteous mind (2012), 149

She cried like a hosepipe that had been slashed

When Thandiwe had to leave the house she cried like a hosepipe that had been slashed. Tears spurted from her eyes on to the towel wrapped around her belly. She cried while her mother held her in her lap and dressed her in the brand new school shoes she had bought from her wages. Her little girl arms that smelt of Lux were wrapped round her mother's neck.

D. Levy, Things I don't want to know (2013), 47-8

It doesn't have wars, it does have beaches, and it's very poor.

Tanzania is one of the most studied countries in Africa. It doesn't have wars, it does have beaches, and it's very poor. This makes it an NGO and academic honey-pot.

R. George, The big necessity (2008), 237

Its dispute with Jerusalem over the canonical jurisdiction of Qatar

The different churches had different reasons for boycotting the Council. Antioch's official position was that it reserved the right to decide not to go to the Council if its dispute with Jerusalem over the canonical jurisdiction of Qatar was not resolved before the Council.

B. Gallaher, 'The Orthodox moment: The Holy and Great Council in Crete and Orthodoxy's encounter with the West', Sobornost 39:2 (2017), 59

The Council in question was in 2016

Before compulsory education, there seems to have been very little difference in the speech of the Scottish and English borderers.

The answers, of course, might turn out to be trivial and obvious. The accent divide [across the Anglo-Scottish border], for instance, is probably quite recent. Local children have the accent of their primary school: pupils at Bewcastle School sound English while pupils at Newcastleton School, six miles away in Scotland, sound Scottish. Before compulsory education to the age of fourteen, there seems to have been very little difference in the speech of the Scottish and English borderers.

G. Robb, The debatable land (2018), 21

It's some c**t in a clown suit

The filming [Of the Ashes to Ashes video] was interrupted by an old man walking his dog in a very leisurely way. When the director gestured to Bowie - sitting patiently to one side - and asked the old man, 'Do you know who this is?' the fellow replied, 'Of course I do. It's some c**t in a clown suit.'

S. Reynolds, Shock and Awe: Glam rock and its legacy (2016), 647

The ungodly godfathers of glam, pioneers of aggressive androgyny and elegantly wasted decadence

Bowie was obsessed with Mick Jagger. Just as Alice Cooper in his early days had decided that the Stones were the group to beat in terms of scaring parents, Bowie yearned to knock them off their pedestal. Yet he knew that the Stones were unassailable. They were, in fact, the ungodly godfathers of glam, pioneers of aggressive androgyny and elegantly wasted decadence. The Velvet Underground may have been the first group to write songs about hard drugs with studied dispassion, but hardly anyone noticed because hardly anyone bought their records. on Let it bleed and even more so with 1971's Sticky Fingers, the Stones referenced heroin and cocaine in songs that got onto the radio and into millions of households.

S. Reynolds, Shock and Awe: Glam rock and its legacy (2016), 308

She has never wanted her own children to be brave

She does not want her to make trouble for her daughters and tell them to get some real problems when they complain about not having the right brand of trainers for school. She has never wanted her own children to be brave. Brave like the children on leaking boats fleeing wars. How many medals does a child need pinned on to her pyjamas? Nothing had taught her that having to summon an abundance of courage, far more than anyone should have to bear is healthy for a child.

D. Levy, The cost of living (2018), 165

It seemed to me that satnav had switched off the way that drivers inhabited a city.

It seemed to me that satnav had switched off the way that drivers inhabited a city. It made them rootless, ahistorical, unable to trust their memory or senses, to measure the distance between one place and another. The river Thames, referred to by Londoners as the river, was of no geographical significance to the driver. .... There were no landmarks. The driver did not look at the Albert Halll when we passed on the northern edge of South Kensington, he was absent to its physical presence, and instead was existentially alone but together with his satnav.

D. Levy, The cost of living (2018), 138-9

Glam principles become ascendant in pop culture during periods when politics moves to the right

Musically, too, glam often seems to hark backward and step forward at the same time. It can't be coincidental that glam principles become ascendant in pop culture during periods when politics moves to the right - the early seventies of Nixon and Heath, the eighties of Reagan and Thatcher, and, most recently, during the first decade of the twenty-first century.

S. Reynolds, Shock and awe: Glam rock and its legacy (2016), 10-11

This is a problematic book, and this a problematic statement (I do not believe we can call the early 21st century glam-influenced in any meaningful degree), but I do like it.