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We don’t see it, and because we don’t see it this means that there is no period so remote as the recent past.

Alan Bennett

[B]riefing is not reading. In fact it is the antithesis of reading. Briefing is terse, factual and to the point.
ALAN BENNETT

Antithesis Brief Fact Factual Point Raed Terse
Had your forefathers, Wigglesworth, been as stupid as you are, the human race would never have succeeded in procreating itself.
ALAN BENNETT

Human People Proceed Procreate Race Standard Stupid
To read is to withdraw.To make oneself unavailable. One would feel easier about it if the pursuit inself were less…selfish.
ALAN BENNETT

Make Oneself Read Unavailable Withdraw
You go to a book to have your convictions corroborated.
ALAN BENNETT

Book Conviction Corroborate Have
The thing I think about is that once you’ve done it, you then start to think about what you’re going to do next.
ALAN BENNETT

Done Go Next Once Start Think
At the drabber moments of my life (swilling some excrement from the steps, for instance, or rooting with a bent coat-hanger down a blocked sink) thoughts occur like.
ALAN BENNETT

Bent Block Coat Drabber Excrement Hanger Insane Life Moment Root Some Step Swill
The best moments in reading are when you come across something – a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things – which you had thought special and particular to you.
ALAN BENNETT

Across Best Come Feel Look Moment Raed Something Special Particular Thought
Over the years Miss Shepherd was visited by a succession of social workers so the character in the play is a composite figure.
ALAN BENNETT

Character Composite Figure Over People Play Social Succession Visit Worker Year
If you find yourself born in Barnsley and then set your sights on being Virginia Woolf it is not going to be roses all the way.
ALAN BENNETT

Being Born Find Go People Rose Sight Virginia Way Wool Yourself
But then books, as I’m sure you know, seldom prompt a course of action.
ALAN BENNETT

Action Aure Book Buy Know Prompt Se; Dom
Illogically, I tend to assume that if you ( Philip Larkin) dream of caning schoolgirls bottoms, it disqualifies you from dismissing half the nation as work-shy.
ALAN BENNETT

Assume Bottom Caning Dismiss Disqualify Dream Half Illogically Nation Schoolgirl Shy Work
I think the writer’s quite low down in the hierarchy really. But the fact that they took the piss out of Nicholas [Hynter] who, besides being the director, is also director of the National Theatre is, I’d have thought, slightly more risky.
ALAN BENNETT

Besides Director Down Hierarchy More Piss Place Quite Really Risky Think Took Writer
Deluded liberal that I am, I persist in thinking that those with a streak of sexual unorthodoxy ought to be more tolerant of their fellows than those who lead an entirely godly, righteous and sober life.
ALAN BENNETT

Deluded Entire Fellow Goldy Liberal More Ought Persist Sexual Sober Streak Think Unorthodoxy
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.
ALAN BENNETT

Between Diminish Fart Imagine Impossible Person Proportion Space Time Whole Stoy
I suppose I’m the only person who remembers one of the most exciting of his ballets-it’s the fruit of an unlikely collaboration between Nijinsky on the one hand and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle on the other.
ALAN BENNETT

Nijinsky Ballet Collaboration Excite Fruit More Only Person Remember Suppose Unlikely
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.
ALAN BENNETT

Breed Class Die Good Like Literature never People Practitioner Run School Snobbery Thread Violence

We don’t see it, and because we don’t see it this means that there is no period so remote as the recent past.

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We don’t see it, and because we don’t see it this means that there is no period so remote as the recent past.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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