One recipe for happiness is to have to sense of entitlement.’ To this she added a star and noted at the bottom of the page: ‘This is not a lesson I have ever been in a position to learn.
ALAN BENNETTOne recipe for happiness is to have to sense of entitlement.’ To this she added a star and noted at the bottom of the page: ‘This is not a lesson I have ever been in a position to learn.
ALAN BENNETTCloisters, ancient libraries … I was confusing learning with the smell of cold stone.
ALAN BENNETTf 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 BENNETTThat’s a bit like asking a man crawling across the Sahara whether he would prefer Perrier or Malvern water.
ALAN BENNETTI can walk. It’s just that I’m so rich I don’t need to.
ALAN BENNETTThe 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 BENNETTBooks are not about passing time. They’re about other lives. Other worlds.
ALAN BENNETTBecause you should realise the Cenotaph and the Last Post and all that stuff is concerned, there’s no better way of forgetting something than by commemorating it.
ALAN BENNETTReading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting. Briefing closes down a subject, reading opens it up.
ALAN BENNETTI’m not “happy” but I’m not unhappy about it.
ALAN BENNETTIf you think squash is a competitive activity, try flower arranging.
ALAN BENNETTIf I am doing nothing, I like to be doing nothing to some purpose. That is what leisure means.
ALAN BENNETTOf course they’re out of date. Standards are always out of date. That is what makes them standards.
ALAN BENNETTThere are more microbes per person than the entire population of the world.
ALAN BENNETTI saw someone peeing in Jermym Street the other day. I thought, is this the end of civilization as we know it? Or is it simply someone peeing in Jermyn Street?
ALAN BENNETTThere 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