Speak and Write like The Economist: Говори и пиши как The Eсonomist

Since then demand has ebbed: the poor have their own facilities these days and the rich slope off to private clubs.

As every actuary knows, the best way to live for a long time is to pick up your parents carefully.

“ Art, books, music, Hollywood, education, media

Who could paint an apple after Cеzanne?

Viewers would decide in seven seconds whether or not to watch.

Michelangelo Merisi was omnisexual and died of sunstroke and syphilis, aggravated by lead poisoning from the paints he mixed.

Before the first world war the most exciting artists were French; in the 1990s they were Chinese. Now the hot new place for contemporary art is Africa.

All you need for a movie is a girl, a gun, lots of singing, melodrama and never-ending dance sequences. Or so a big chunk of the Indian audience believes. Pre-screening rituals include burning camphor inside a sliced pumpkin before smashing it near the big screen to bring good luck.

Vincent Van Gogh died in obscurity, having sold only one painting.

BP will hope that having a new partner will work out better than it did for Anna Karenina, who flung herself in front of a train after the disintegration of her relationship with her replacement Russian lover.

Pablo Picasso: "Good artists copy, great artists steal."

No one has ever bothered to explain what "good" or "bad" jazz really is. When you see a live performance, you may be watching a 60-year-old musician playing a 100-year-old piece.

Of Nabokov's 19 fictions, no fewer than six wholly or partly concern themselves with the sexuality of prepubescent girls.

The painter was also a shrewd businessman; he mixed indigo and madder to replicate the effect of the period's most expensive pigment, Tyrian purple, which was extracted from sea snails and worth more than its weight in gold.

CNN's challenge is to attract more viewers when no one is shooting anyone or blowing anything up.

Back when newspapers were king, Charles Brownson, an American congressman, used to say that one should never quarrel with anyone who buys ink by the barrel.

Artists came to paint and sculpt, writers to write, deadbeats to die, and a large share to drink and misbehave.

Only twice did George Martin, the Beatles record producer impose himself: at the start, insisting that they replace Pete Best as their drummer, and at the end, when he agreed to record "Abbey Road" if they stopped fighting.