black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

I’ve never forgotten that experience. But I had nobody at school that was either like Hector or Irwin.
ALAN BENNETT

Either Experience Forgotten Like Nobody People School
The majority of people perform well in a crisis and when the spotlight is on them; it’s on the Sunday afternoons of this life, when nobody is looking, that the spirit falters.
ALAN BENNETT

Crise Majority People Perform Spotlight Them
What I’m above all primarily concerned with is the substance of life, the pith of reality.
ALAN BENNETT

Above Concern Pith Primarily Reality Substance
…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.
ALAN BENNETT

Chosen Felt Impossible Late Read She Stage Writer
Nor did they seem to think one had done them a kindness by reading their writings. Rather they had done one the kindness by writing them.
ALAN BENNETT

Done Kindness Nor Read Seem Think Write
Why do we not care to acknowledge them? The cattle, the body count.
ALAN BENNETT

Acknowledge Care Cattle Count Foo
And one of the historian’s jobs is to anticipate what our perspective of that period will be… even on the Holocaust.
ALAN BENNETT

Anticipate Historian Holocaust Period Perspective Remote
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.
ALAN BENNETT

Dishwasher Empt Nativity Pen Play Round Saga Sainsbury Threat Trailing
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
One of the hardest things for boys to learn is that a teacher is human.
ALAN BENNETT

Hardest Human One Learn Teacher Thing
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
Life is like a box of sardines and we are all looking for the key.
ALAN BENNETT

Al Box Life Look Sadness Sky
But then, when I did go, the contrast between Leeds, which was very black and sooty in those days, and Cambridge, which seemed like something out of a fairystory, in the grip of a hard frost, was just wonderful.
ALAN BENNETT

Balck Cambridge Contrast Day Fairstory Frost Hard Leed Seem Something Sooty Wonderful
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
Books, bread and butter, mashed potato – one finishes what’s on one’s plate. That’s always been my philosophy.
ALAN BENNETT

Book Bread Butter Finish Mash One Philosophy Plate Potato
Cloisters, ancient libraries … I was confusing learning with the smell of cold stone.
ALAN BENNETT

Ancient Cold Confuse Country Learn Library Smell Stone

It’s subjunctive history. You know, the subjunctive? The mood used when something may or may not have happened. When it is imagined.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

It’s subjunctive history. You know, the subjunctive? The mood used when something may or may not have happened. When it is imagined.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Alan Bennett Quotes