And one of the historian’s jobs is to anticipate what our perspective of that period will be… even on the Holocaust.
ALAN BENNETTYou go to a book to have your convictions corroborated.
More Alan Bennett Quotes
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I write plays about things that I can’t resolve in my mind. I try to root things out.
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So boring you fall asleep halfway through her name.
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Clichés can be quite fun. That’s how they got to be clichés.
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You don’t put your life into your books, you find it there.
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I 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?
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The masters had no idea what was expected of you in the scholarship exam, so you just had to busk it really.
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Nor did they seem to think one had done them a kindness by reading their writings. Rather they had done one the kindness by writing them.
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But most men regard their life as a poem that women threaten.
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If I had to sum up my work, I suppose that’s it really: I’m taking the pith out of reality.
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At the drabber moments of my life (swilling some excrement from the steps, for instance, or rooting with a bent coat-hanger down a blocked sink) thoughts occur like.
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I tried to explain to her the significance of the great poet, but without much success,
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Reading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting. Briefing closes down a subject, reading opens it up.
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Books are not about passing the time. They’re about other lives. Other worlds.
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Had your forefathers, Wigglesworth, been as stupid as you are, the human race would never have succeeded in procreating itself.
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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