Books are not about passing time. They’re about other lives. Other worlds.
ALAN BENNETTIn the way of circumstances and background to transcend I had everything an artist could possibly want. It was practically a blueprint.
More Alan Bennett Quotes
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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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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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Life is rather like a tin of sardines – we’re all of us looking for the key.
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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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So, half a dozen of us tried – not all of us in history – and we all eventually got in. So, to that extent, it [The History Boys] comes out of my own experience.
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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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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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They may not have two spondees to rub together but they still want to pen their saga untrammelled by life-threatening activities like trailing round Sainsbury’s, emptying the dishwasher or going to the nativity play.
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Our perspective on the past alters. Looking back, immediately in front of us is dead ground.
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Schweitzer in the Congo did not derive more moral credit than Larkin did for living in Hull.
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One of the hardest things for a teacher to learn is not to try and tell them.
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Books generally just confirm you in what you have, perhaps unwittingly, decided to do already.
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Were we closer to the ground as children, or is the grass emptier now?
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Have you ever thought, headmaster, that your standards might perhaps be a little out of date?
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A photograph on every mantlepiece. And all this mourning has veiled the truth. It’s not so much lest we forget, as lest we remember.
ALAN BENNETT