Fact!

The distance between inspiring and manipulating is sometimes only an exclamation mark.

- AA Gill, Sunday Times

On the two types of story (superb!)

the hectic experimentalism of the so-called McSweeney's short story (reflexive, impertinent, typographically playful, slightly annoying)... emerged around the turn of the millennium to challenge the dominance of the so-called New Yorker short story (calm, humane, sparse, slightly dull).

- Robert Macfarlane, Sunday Times

Touching bottom

Those lucky enough to get a ticket for A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Rose in Kingston last year will have been treated to his Bottom...

- Helen Hawkins, in The Sunday Times Culture

To cut a short story short

The Sunday Times is running a £30,000 short story competition. This is good.

But you have to be a published (fiction) author to enter. This is not so good.*

--
* Unless you're one of the judges, in which case one sees their point.

Nonsense

Saying I don't like women would be like saying I don't like giraffes. Which is nonsense. 

- Lars von Trier, The Sunday Times

Political correctness gone full retard

On Gary Oldman's career playing wackos:

He never quite went the "full retard", as the film Tropic Thunder describes performances too horrifying to win awards.

- Camilla Long, Sunday Times Magazine

Er, no. They're talking about actual retards.

?!!

Apparently, Ballard fantasised about having sex with Margaret Thatcher in the back of the prime ministerial Daimler V8. Is that so odd?

- Ian Thomson, The Sunday Times