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 BENNETTAbove literature?’ said the Queen. ‘Who is above literature? You might as well say one was above humanity.
More Alan Bennett Quotes
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There are more microbes per person than the entire population of the world.
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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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Children always assume the sexual lives of their parents come to a grinding halt at their conception.
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Art comes out of art; it begins with imitation, often in the form of parody, and it’s in the process of imitating the voice of others that one comes to learn the sound of one’s own.
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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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I’m not “happy” but I’m not unhappy about it.
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The Breed never dies. Sapper, Buchan, Dornford Yates, practitioners in that school of Snobbery withViolence that runs like a thread of good-class tweed through twentieth-century literature.
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To read is to withdraw.To make oneself unavailable. One would feel easier about it if the pursuit inself were less…selfish.
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I tried to explain to her the significance of the great poet, but without much success,
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If you think squash is a competitive activity, try flower arranging.
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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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Books, bread and butter, mashed potato – one finishes what’s on one’s plate. That’s always been my philosophy.
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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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You have the knowledge but that does not entitle you to be superior. Knowledge makes you the servant not the master.
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The liturgy is best treated and read as if it’s someone announcing the departure of trains.
ALAN BENNETT