I lack what the English call character, by which they mean the power to refrain.
ALAN BENNETTYou have the knowledge but that does not entitle you to be superior. Knowledge makes you the servant not the master.
More Alan Bennett Quotes
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Life is generally something that happens elsewhere.
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Those who have known the famous are publicly debriefed of their memories.
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I was an only child. I lost both my parents. By the time I was twenty I was bald. I’m homosexual.
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I saw someone peeing in Jermym Street the other day. I thought, is this the end of civilization as we know it? Or is it simply someone peeing in Jermyn Street?
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To begin with, it’s true, she read with trepidation and some unease.
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Schweitzer in the Congo did not derive more moral credit than Larkin did for living in Hull.
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[talking about the Holocaust] ‘But to put something in context is a step towards saying it can be understood and that it can be explained.
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History is a commentary on the various and continuing incapabilities of men. What is history? History is women following behind with the bucket.
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Some local boys come in and there is a bit of chat between them and the fish-fryer about whether the kestrel under the counter is for sale.
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I have never understood disliking for war. It panders to instincts already catered for within the scope of any respectable domestic establishment.
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And one of the historian’s jobs is to anticipate what our perspective of that period will be… even on the Holocaust.
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The best moments in reading are when you come across something – a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things – which you had thought special and particular to you.
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My experience came before most of you were born.
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If you find yourself born in Barnsley and then set your sights on being Virginia Woolf it is not going to be roses all the way.
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I don’t talk very well. With writing, you’ve time to get it right. Also I’ve found the more I talk the less I write, and if I didn’t write no one would want me to talk anyway.
ALAN BENNETT