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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

I’ve never seen the point of the sea, except where it meets the land. The shore has a point. The sea has none.
ALAN BENNETT

Except Land Meet never Point Sea Seen Shore
I think perhaps that’s why I live in Ibiza, because the blue of the Mediterranean, you see, reminds me of the blue of the eyes of those Doncaster miners.
ALAN BENNETT

Blue Eye Live Perhaps Remind Think
Kafka could never have written as he did had he lived in a house.
ALAN BENNETT

House Live never Write
Our father the novelist; my husband the poet. He belongs to the ages – just don’t catch him at breakfast.
ALAN BENNETT

Age Belong Breakfast Catch Father Husband Novelist Poet
I think the writer’s quite low down in the hierarchy really. But the fact that they took the piss out of Nicholas [Hynter] who, besides being the director, is also director of the National Theatre is, I’d have thought, slightly more risky.
ALAN BENNETT

Besides Director Down Hierarchy More Piss Place Quite Really Risky Think Took Writer
Schweitzer in the Congo did not derive more moral credit than Larkin did for living in Hull.
ALAN BENNETT

Congo Country Credit Derive Hull Larkin Live More People
Definition of a classic: a book everyone is assumed to have read and often thinks they have.
ALAN BENNETT

Assume Book Classic Definition Everyone Often Read Think
It seems to me the mark of a civilized society that certain privileges should be taken for granted such as education, health care and the safety to walk the streets.
ALAN BENNETT

Certain Civilize Education Grant Privilege Seem Society Taken
If I am doing nothing, I like to be doing nothing to some purpose. That is what leisure means.
ALAN BENNETT

Do Leisure Mean Nothing Purpose Some
But then books, as I’m sure you know, seldom prompt a course of action.
ALAN BENNETT

Action Aure Book Buy Know Prompt Se; Dom
The days weren’t long enough for the reading she wanted to do.
ALAN BENNETT

Day Enough Long Raed Want
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
The Waste Land not figuring very largely in Mam’s scheme of things. “The thing is,” I said finally, “he won the Nobel Prize.” “Well,” she said, with that unerring grasp of inessentials which is the prerogative of mothers, “I’m not surprised. It was a beautiful overcoat.”
ALAN BENNETT

Beautiful Figure Final Grasp Inessential Land Large Nobel Overcoat Prerogative Prize Scheme Thing Waste
Books generally just confirm you in what you have, perhaps unwittingly, decided to do already.
ALAN BENNETT

Already Book Confirm Decide Generally Just Perhaps Unwittingly
[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.
ALAN BENNETT

Context Explain Holocaust Say Something Step Talking Toward Understand
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

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.

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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.

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