While it is constantly said that the world is getting smaller and there are fewer and fewer boundaries, never before have borders been more rigid than they are now

The days when caravans could freely cross mountain passes and national borders are long gone. While it is constantly said that the world is getting smaller and there are fewer and fewer boundaries, never before have borders been more rigid than they are now. There can be no doubt that the map takes precedence over the terrain: the abstract red lines of the map are fiercely guarded on the ground by cameras, motion sensors, armed guards, and often also by physical barriers such as barbed wire, fences and walls.

E. Fatland, High (2020), 65

Like farming land, some patches of retail were just barren, would yield no crop

Like farming land, some patches of retail were just barren, would yield no crop. Other patches, perhaps very close, were fertile ground. Nobody could tell you why definitely. If you had selling in your blood, from generations, you could tell whether a site for a shop would work or not, as a farmer could tell good land from barren by picking up a fistful and sniffing it. It might be just the way that sun hit the front of your shop in the morning. It might be on the road that people naturally walked down to to get to the tube station, and preferably on the other side of the road to their path, so they would  get a good look at your shop rather than walking straight past it, head down.

P. Hensher, The Emperor Waltz  (2014), 147

I came to feel that a man who had never ... tried to reach a compromise and never had to make a ruthless decision, could not have much knowledge of the day to day problems of politics

At the time I knew nothing about politics and scarcely listened. Later on, when I had spent some time on the perimeter of public life, I came to feel that a man who had never sat on a committee, never bargained with an opponent, never tried to reach a compromise and never had to make a ruthless decision, could not have much knowledge of the day to day problems of politics; and many of his [Berenson's] judgements on English politics were grotesquely wrong.

K. Clark, Another part of the wood (1974), 153

You must be ... the other Sir Kenneth Clark is a fearful shit; everybody says so

I found myself among a group of members none of whom I remembered having seen, who naturally did not address a word to me. After about ten minutes a man who looked like a Naval Officer, wearing a claret-coloured bow-tie, advanced towards me and said "You're Sire Kenneth Clark." I agreed. "The Bart, of course", he said. "No," I said "I am not a baronet." "But you must be," he said, "the other Sir Kenneth Clark is a fearful shit; everybody says so." "Well, I'm afraid I'm the only one"; and as he left me I wondered if he had meant to insult me or was simply misinformed.

 K. Clark, Another part of the wood (1974), 13

Many people were richer, there can have been few who were idler

I was born on July 13th, 1903, at 32 Gosvenor Square, a space now occupied by the American Embassy. My parents belonged to a section of society known as 'the idle rich', and although in that golden age, many people were richer, there can have been few who were idler. They took no part in public affairs, do not read the newspapers, and where almost entirely without the old upper-class feeling of responsibility for their tenants.

K. Clark, Another part of the wood (1974), 1

Wrote frequent letters to the Spectator which were never printed

Otherwise Helen ate a good deal, continued to work on her melodramatic novel and, like most members of the bookish upper classes, wrote frequent letters to the Spectator which were never printed. She had more luck with The Times. Something should be done, she insisted, about the decline of the stately homes of England

P. French, Younghusband (1992), 316

To describe Yak-rustling as ‘an overt act of hostility’ by a foreign power is plainly absurd

The fact that the Viceroy of India was sending telegrams about the fate of frontier livestock to the Secretary of State (and hence the Cabinet) shows the flimsiness of the justifications he was putting forward for invading Tibet. To describe Yak-rustling as ‘an overt act of hostility’ by a foreign power is plainly absurd. It shows the way Curzon was willing to use almost any excuse to obtain sanction for a further advance into Tibet, so certain was he that the Russian bear needed to be checked.

P. French, Younghusband (1992), 193