black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Definition of a classic: a book everyone is assumed to have read and often thinks they have.

Alan Bennett

All the effort went into getting there and then I had nothing left. I thought I’d got somewhere, then I found I had to go on.
ALAN BENNETT

All Effort Left Nothing Went
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.
ALAN BENNETT

Every Forget Lest Mantlepiece Mourn Much Photograph Remember Veiled
I dont know whether you’ve ever looked into a miner’s eyes for any length of time, that is. Because it is the loveliest blue you’ve ever seen.
ALAN BENNETT

Blue Every Eye Know Length Look Loveliest Miner Seen Time Yet
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
Of course my standards are out of date! That’s why they’re called standards.
ALAN BENNETT

Call Course Date Out Standard
Why is it always the “intelligent” people who are socialists?
ALAN BENNETT

Always Intelligent People Socialist
Were we closer to the ground as children, or is the grass emptier now?
ALAN BENNETT

Children Closer Empire Grass Ground Now
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.
ALAN BENNETT

Case Convince Involve Longer Medicine More Practice Trouser Two Type
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
Reading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting.
ALAN BENNETT

Discursive Invite Perpetual Raed Untidy
Only when I mention it to W. does he explain Kestrel is now a lager. I imagine the future is going to contain an increasing number of incidents like this.
ALAN BENNETT

Explain Future Gone Imagine Incident Increase Larger Mention Number
f they’d been working with Alec Guinness, for instance, they wouldn’t have known they were born if they’d not towed the line!
ALAN BENNETT

Alec Been Born Business Instance Work
Life is rather like a tin of sardines – we’re all of us looking for the key.
ALAN BENNETT

Key Life Look Rather Sardine Tin
Knowing as their own dusk falls that they will only be remembered for remembering someone else.
ALAN BENNETT

Else Fall Know Own Remember Something Sudk
Artists, celebrated for their humanity, they turn out to be scarcely human at all.
ALAN BENNETT

All Artist Celebrate Human Humanity Scarcely Turn
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
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
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
You must take people as they come. Remember, too that though you will generally know more about the condition than the patient, it is the patient who has the condition and this if nothing else bestows on him or her a kind of wisdom.
ALAN BENNETT

Condition Else Generally Kind Nothing Patient People Remember Wisdom
It [Cambridge] wasn’t a holy grail in the sense that I’d never been to Cambridge.
ALAN BENNETT

Been Cambridge Grail Holy never Sense
Once I start a book I finish it. That was the way one was brought up.
ALAN BENNETT

Book Bought Finish Once Start Way
There is no such thing as a good script, onlya good film, and I’m conscious that my scripts often read better than they play.
ALAN BENNETT

Better Play Conscious Film Good No Often Raed Script Such Thing
Why do we not care to acknowledge them? The cattle, the body count.
ALAN BENNETT

Acknowledge Care Cattle Count Foo
But the headmaster happened to have been to Cambridge and decided to try and push some of us towards Oxford and Cambridge.
ALAN BENNETT

Cambridge Decide Happen Headmaster Oxford Push Some Try
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
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
A composite too are the neighbours, Pauline and Rufus, though I have made Rufus a publisher in remembrance of my neighbour, the late Colin Haycraft, the proprietor of Duckworth’s.
ALAN BENNETT

Proprietor Composite Made Neighbour People Publisher Remembrance Though Too

Definition of a classic: a book everyone is assumed to have read and often thinks they have.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Definition of a classic: a book everyone is assumed to have read and often thinks they have.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Alan Bennett Quotes