Philip Larkin used to cheer himself up by looking in the mirror and saying the line from Rebecca, ‘I am Mrs de Winter now!
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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I’m all in favour of free expression provided it’s kept rigidly under control.
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Nature played a cruel trick on her by giving her a waxed mustache.
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Reading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting.
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Never read the Bible as if it means something. Or at any rate don’t try and mean it. Nor prayers.
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But the headmaster happened to have been to Cambridge and decided to try and push some of us towards Oxford and Cambridge.
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It [Cambridge] wasn’t a holy grail in the sense that I’d never been to Cambridge.
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Mark my words, when a society has to resort to the lavatory for its humour, the writing is on the wall.
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Have you ever thought, headmaster, that your standards might perhaps be a little out of date?
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Only when I mention it to W. does he explain Kestrel is now a lager. I imagine the future is going to contain an increasing number of incidents like this.
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f they’d been working with Alec Guinness, for instance, they wouldn’t have known they were born if they’d not towed the line!
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What I’m above all primarily concerned with is the substance of life, the pith of reality.
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There’s very little in the substance of [THE LADY IN THE VAN] which is not fact though some adjustments have had to be made.
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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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Books are not about passing the time. They’re about other lives. Other worlds.
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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