Taylor, Berlin was a consummate telly-don, always available for a word-perfect interview in grainy black-and-white with Bernard Levin or Bryan Magee on the meaning of life or the way of the world.

ECONOMIST: And what it says about the role of public intellectuals

In Yes Minister, Sir Humphrey and his civil service colleague Bernard Woolley regularly flaunt their classical education with word-perfect Latin and Greek quotations they know their boss will not understand.

BBC: Memory and method: In praise of learning by rote

My grandmother, bored by inactivity within weeks of the move, created a job for herself at a commuter college in Sarasota, teaching Russian literature to tanned students who seem (based on my one classroom visit) constantly alarmed by her profanity, her heavy sarcasm, and her word-perfect memory of Pushkin's verse.

NPR: Excerpt: 'City of Thieves'