What I’m above all primarily concerned with is the substance of life, the pith of reality.
ALAN BENNETTHis writing is that of someone whose whole life was spent in apartments, with lifts, stairwells, muffled voices behind closed doors, and sounds through walls.
More Alan Bennett Quotes
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Art comes out of art; it begins with imitation, often in the form of parody, and it’s in the process of imitating the voice of others that one comes to learn the sound of one’s own.
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To play Trivial Pursuit with a life like mine could be said to be a form of homeopathy.
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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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Definition of a classic: a book everyone is assumed to have read and often thinks they have.
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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.
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There’s very little in the substance of [THE LADY IN THE VAN] which is not fact though some adjustments have had to be made.
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The days weren’t long enough for the reading she wanted to do.
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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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It’s the one species I wouldn’t mind seeing vanish from the face of the earth.
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One of the hardest things for a teacher to learn is not to try and tell them.
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A book is a device to ignite the imagination.
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Above literature?’ said the Queen. ‘Who is above literature? You might as well say one was above humanity.
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If you think squash is a competitive activity, try flower arranging.
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My experience came before most of you were born.
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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.
ALAN BENNETT