We were put to Dickens as children but it never quite took. That unremitting humanity soon had me cheesed off.
ALAN BENNETTIf I had to sum up my work, I suppose that’s it really: I’m taking the pith out of reality.
More Alan Bennett Quotes
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Those who have known the famous are publicly debriefed of their memories.
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We still don’t like to admit the war was even partly our fault because so many of our people died.
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Put him in a nice detached villa and he’d never have written a word.
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Memories are not shackles, Franklin, they are garlands.
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Books are not about passing the time. They’re about other lives. Other worlds.
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A photograph on every mantlepiece. And all this mourning has veiled the truth. It’s not so much lest we forget, as lest we remember.
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My experience came before most of you were born.
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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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…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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And if it can be explained that it can be explained away.’ ‘But this is History. Distance yourselves.
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I’m not good at precise, coherent argument. But plays are suited to incoherent argument, put into the mouths of fallible people.
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Over the years Miss Shepherd was visited by a succession of social workers so the character in the play is a composite figure.
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If you think squash is a competitive activity, try flower arranging.
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If I am doing nothing, I like to be doing nothing to some purpose. That is what leisure means.
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Life is like a box of sardines and we are all looking for the key.
ALAN BENNETT