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Once I start a book I finish it. That was the way one was brought up.

Alan Bennett

I turned down a knighthood. It would be like having to wear a suit every day of your life.
ALAN BENNETT

Day Down Have Knighthood Life Suit Turn Wear
Remember. You are a physician. You are not a policeman nor are you a minister of religion.
ALAN BENNETT

Cloth Minister Owner Physician Religion Remember
If I had to sum up my work, I suppose that’s it really: I’m taking the pith out of reality.
ALAN BENNETT

Pity Reality Really Sum Suppose Talk Work
Life is generally something that happens elsewhere.
ALAN BENNETT

Elsewhere Generally Happen Life Something
Culminating with a man in a white coat saying to one kindly, “And now can you tell me the name of the Prime Minister?”
ALAN BENNETT

Can Coat Culminate Kindly Man Name Prime Minister Say Tell White
His writing is that of someone whose whole life was spent in apartments, with lifts, stairwells, muffled voices behind closed doors, and sounds through walls.
ALAN BENNETT

Apartment Door Someone Sound Spent Wall Write
I’m for the freedom of expression, given that it will be under strict control.
ALAN BENNETT

Control Expression Freedom Give Strict
It’s subjunctive history. You know, the subjunctive? The mood used when something may or may not have happened. When it is imagined.
ALAN BENNETT

Happen History Mood Something Subjunctive Use
And now, here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out, and taken yours
ALAN BENNETT

Come Dead Down Hand Long Person Set Someone Your
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.
ALAN BENNETT

Assure Broadway Exactly Film Instance Made Same Show Understand
The nearest my parents came to alcohol was at Holy Communion and they utterly overestimated its effects.
ALAN BENNETT

Alcohol Communion Effect Holy Near Overestimate Parent Utterly
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.
ALAN BENNETT

Art Begin Come Form Imitate Parofy Process Voice
The Waste Land not figuring very largely in Mam’s scheme of things. “The thing is,” I said finally, “he won the Nobel Prize.” “Well,” she said, with that unerring grasp of inessentials which is the prerogative of mothers, “I’m not surprised. It was a beautiful overcoat.”
ALAN BENNETT

Beautiful Figure Final Grasp Inessential Land Large Nobel Overcoat Prerogative Prize Scheme Thing Waste
Mark my words, when a society has to resort to the lavatory for its humour, the writing is on the wall.
ALAN BENNETT

Humour Lavatory Mark Resort Society Wall Word Write
You go to a book to have your convictions corroborated.
ALAN BENNETT

Book Conviction Corroborate Have
However bad the weather, Dad never drove to church because Mam thought the sacrament might make him incapable on the return journey.
ALAN BENNETT

Church Incapable Journey Return Sacrament Weather

Once I start a book I finish it. That was the way one was brought up.

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Once I start a book I finish it. That was the way one was brought up.

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