Over the years Miss Shepherd was visited by a succession of social workers so the character in the play is a composite figure.
ALAN BENNETTOver the years Miss Shepherd was visited by a succession of social workers so the character in the play is a composite figure.
ALAN BENNETTLife is like a box of sardines and we are all looking for the key.
ALAN BENNETTMy films are about embarrassment.
ALAN BENNETTNever read the Bible as if it means something. Or at any rate don’t try and mean it. Nor prayers.
ALAN BENNETTA bookshelf is as particular to its owner as are his or her clothes; a personality is stamped on a library just as a shoe is shaped by the foot.
ALAN BENNETTOne reads for pleasure…it is not a public duty.
ALAN BENNETTKafka could never have written as he did had he lived in a house.
ALAN BENNETTThe liturgy is best treated and read as if it’s someone announcing the departure of trains.
ALAN BENNETTA composite too are the neighbours, Pauline and Rufus, though I have made Rufus a publisher in remembrance of my neighbour, the late Colin Haycraft, the proprietor of Duckworth’s.
ALAN BENNETTI was an only child. I lost both my parents. By the time I was twenty I was bald. I’m homosexual.
ALAN BENNETTThat’s a bit like asking a man crawling across the Sahara whether he would prefer Perrier or Malvern water.
ALAN BENNETTSometimes there is no next time, no time-outs, no second chances. Sometimes it’s now or never.
ALAN BENNETTYour whole life is on the other side of the glass. And there is nobody watching.
ALAN BENNETTOur father the novelist; my husband the poet. He belongs to the ages – just don’t catch him at breakfast.
ALAN BENNETTI’m not “happy” but I’m not unhappy about it.
ALAN BENNETTI lack what the English call character, by which they mean the power to refrain.
ALAN BENNETT