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I’m not good at precise, coherent argument. But plays are suited to incoherent argument, put into the mouths of fallible people.

Alan Bennett

It seems to me the mark of a civilized society that certain privileges should be taken for granted such as education, health care and the safety to walk the streets.
ALAN BENNETT

Certain Civilize Education Grant Privilege Seem Society Taken
I think the writer’s quite low down in the hierarchy really. But the fact that they took the piss out of Nicholas [Hynter] who, besides being the director, is also director of the National Theatre is, I’d have thought, slightly more risky.
ALAN BENNETT

Besides Director Down Hierarchy More Piss Place Quite Really Risky Think Took Writer
The sheer endlessness of books outfaced her and she had no idea how to go on; there was no system to her reading, with one book leading to another, and often she had two or three on the go at the same time.
ALAN BENNETT

Another Book Endlessness Idea Lead Outface Raed Same Sheer System Time
Had your forefathers, Wigglesworth, been as stupid as you are, the human race would never have succeeded in procreating itself.
ALAN BENNETT

Human People Proceed Procreate Race Standard Stupid
At the drabber moments of my life (swilling some excrement from the steps, for instance, or rooting with a bent coat-hanger down a blocked sink) thoughts occur like.
ALAN BENNETT

Bent Block Coat Drabber Excrement Hanger Insane Life Moment Root Some Step Swill
A book, as it were, closes the book.
ALAN BENNETT

As Book Close Were
I lack what the English call character, by which they mean the power to refrain.
ALAN BENNETT

Call Character English Lack Mean Power Refrain
Our father the novelist; my husband the poet. He belongs to the ages – just don’t catch him at breakfast.
ALAN BENNETT

Age Belong Breakfast Catch Father Husband Novelist Poet
Of course they’re out of date. Standards are always out of date. That is what makes them standards.
ALAN BENNETT

Always Course Date Make Out Standard
To play Trivial Pursuit with a life like mine could be said to be a form of homeopathy.
ALAN BENNETT

Could Form Homeopathy Life Mine Play Pursuit Trival
Books did not care who was reading them or whether one read them or not. All readers were equal, herself included. Literature, she thought, is a commonwealth; letters a republic.
ALAN BENNETT

Book Commonwealth Equal Herself Literature Read Reader Republic
I’m for the freedom of expression, given that it will be under strict control.
ALAN BENNETT

Control Expression Freedom Give Strict
We don’t see it, and because we don’t see it this means that there is no period so remote as the recent past.
ALAN BENNETT

Down Mean No Past Period Recent Remote See
The Waste Land not figuring very largely in Mam’s scheme of things. “The thing is,” I said finally, “he won the Nobel Prize.” “Well,” she said, with that unerring grasp of inessentials which is the prerogative of mothers, “I’m not surprised. It was a beautiful overcoat.”
ALAN BENNETT

Beautiful Figure Final Grasp Inessential Land Large Nobel Overcoat Prerogative Prize Scheme Thing Waste
It [Cambridge] wasn’t a holy grail in the sense that I’d never been to Cambridge.
ALAN BENNETT

Been Cambridge Grail Holy never Sense
The Breed never dies. Sapper, Buchan, Dornford Yates, practitioners in that school of Snobbery withViolence that runs like a thread of good-class tweed through twentieth-century literature.
ALAN BENNETT

Breed Class Die Good Like Literature never People Practitioner Run School Snobbery Thread Violence

I’m not good at precise, coherent argument. But plays are suited to incoherent argument, put into the mouths of fallible people.

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I’m not good at precise, coherent argument. But plays are suited to incoherent argument, put into the mouths of fallible people.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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