To begin with, it’s true, she read with trepidation and some unease.
ALAN BENNETTIt’s subjunctive history. You know, the subjunctive? The mood used when something may or may not have happened. When it is imagined.
More Alan Bennett Quotes
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…she felt about reading what some writers felt about writing: that it was impossible not to do it and that at this late stage of her life she had been chosen to read as others were chosen to write.
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Sometimes there is no next time, no time-outs, no second chances. Sometimes it’s now or never.
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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
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Life is generally something that happens elsewhere.
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Cloisters, ancient libraries … I was confusing learning with the smell of cold stone.
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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.
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Had your forefathers, Wigglesworth, been as stupid as you are, the human race would never have succeeded in procreating itself.
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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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My experience came before most of you were born.
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Memories are not shackles, Franklin, they are garlands.
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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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I’m for the freedom of expression, given that it will be under strict control.
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One of the hardest things for boys to learn is that a teacher is human.
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The longer I practise medicine, the more convinced I am there are only two types of cases: those that involve taking the trousers off and those that don’t.
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And if it can be explained that it can be explained away.’ ‘But this is History. Distance yourselves.
ALAN BENNETT