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 BENNETTHere I sit, alone at 60, Bald and fat and full of sin Cold the seat, and loud the cistern As I read the (Harpic) (Lysol) tin
More Alan Bennett Quotes
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The trouble is, as soon as you’ve chosen somebody it obscures anybody else you might have thought of.
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Cloisters, ancient libraries … I was confusing learning with the smell of cold stone.
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My school was a state school in Leeds and the headmaster usually sent students to Leeds University but he didn’t normally send them to Oxford or Cambridge.
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Life is like a box of sardines and we are all looking for the key.
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Polly: Education with socialists, it’s like sex, all right as long as you don’t have to pay for it.
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However bad the weather, Dad never drove to church because Mam thought the sacrament might make him incapable on the return journey.
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If I had to sum up my work, I suppose that’s it really: I’m taking the pith out of reality.
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I tried to explain to her the significance of the great poet, but without much success,
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No mention of God. They keep Him up their sleeves for as long as they can, vicars do. They know it puts people off.
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I’m for the freedom of expression, given that it will be under strict control.
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And if it can be explained that it can be explained away.’ ‘But this is History. Distance yourselves.
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One recipe for happiness is to have to sense of entitlement.’ To this she added a star and noted at the bottom of the page: ‘This is not a lesson I have ever been in a position to learn.
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The appeal of reading, she thought, lay in its indifference: there was something undeferring about literature.
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I had no idea of who could play it, no notion really. Then Richard came to see us but I don’t think it was decided at that meeting.
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I’m all in favour of free expression provided it’s kept rigidly under control.
ALAN BENNETT






