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.
ALAN BENNETTDeluded liberal that I am, I persist in thinking that those with a streak of sexual unorthodoxy ought to be more tolerant of their fellows than those who lead an entirely godly, righteous and sober life.
More Alan Bennett Quotes
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If you think squash is a competitive activity, try flower arranging.
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To begin with, it’s true, she read with trepidation and some unease.
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Why is it always the “intelligent” people who are socialists?
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The nearest my parents came to alcohol was at Holy Communion and they utterly overestimated its effects.
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The thing I think about is that once you’ve done it, you then start to think about what you’re going to do next.
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I think perhaps that’s why I live in Ibiza, because the blue of the Mediterranean, you see, reminds me of the blue of the eyes of those Doncaster miners.
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What she was finding also was how one book led to another, doors kept opening wherever she turned and the days weren’t long enough for the reading she wanted to do.
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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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Philip Larkin used to cheer himself up by looking in the mirror and saying the line from Rebecca, ‘I am Mrs de Winter now!
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Life is like a box of sardines and we are all looking for the key.
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You go to a book to have your convictions corroborated.
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The liturgy is best treated and read as if it’s someone announcing the departure of trains.
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[B]riefing is not reading. In fact it is the antithesis of reading. Briefing is terse, factual and to the point.
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If, for instance, we’d made the film after the show had been to Broadway, it would have been exactly the same film but we would have been assured that they would have understood it.
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I tried to explain to her the significance of the great poet, but without much success,
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