It’s subjunctive history. You know, the subjunctive? The mood used when something may or may not have happened. When it is imagined.
ALAN BENNETTSchweitzer in the Congo did not derive more moral credit than Larkin did for living in Hull.
More Alan Bennett Quotes
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I tried to explain to her the significance of the great poet, but without much success,
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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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Soft Left, Hard Right, Soft Right and Centre. I am not listed. I should probably come under Soft Centre.
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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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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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You go to a book to have your convictions corroborated.
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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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Imagine that. Per person. This means that if the time scale is diminished in proportion to that of space it would be quite possible for the whole story of Greece and Rome to be played out between farts.
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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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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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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.
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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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I’m all in favour of free expression provided it’s kept rigidly under control.
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Why do we not care to acknowledge them? The cattle, the body count.
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Our father the novelist; my husband the poet. He belongs to the ages – just don’t catch him at breakfast.
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