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It’s like going to a place that you’ve never been to before – you’ve got a picture of it and then you go there and that picture is totally wiped out by the reality.

Alan Bennett

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
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
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
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
Books are not about passing the time. They’re about other lives. Other worlds.
ALAN BENNETT

Book Live Other Pass Time World
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
…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.
ALAN BENNETT

Chosen Felt Impossible Late Read She Stage Writer
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
Put him in a nice detached villa and he’d never have written a word.
ALAN BENNETT

Detach Have Him never Nice Put Villa Word Write
If, for instance, we’d made the film after the show had been to Broadway, it would have been exactly the same film but we would have been assured that they would have understood it.
ALAN BENNETT

Assure Broadway Exactly Film Instance Made Same Show Understand
Your whole life is on the other side of the glass. And there is nobody watching.
ALAN BENNETT

Glass Life Nobody Other Side Watch Whole
The appeal of reading, she thought, lay in its indifference: there was something undeferring about literature.
ALAN BENNETT

Appear Indifference Literature Read Something Through Underfy
So, half a dozen of us tried – not all of us in history – and we all eventually got in. So, to that extent, it [The History Boys] comes out of my own experience.
ALAN BENNETT

Dozen Eventually Experience Extent Half History Own Try
Far from wanting time to pass, one just wishes one had more of it. If one wanted to pass the time one could go to New Zealand.
ALAN BENNETT

Country More Pass Time Want Wish
To play Trivial Pursuit with a life like mine could be said to be a form of homeopathy.
ALAN BENNETT

Could Form Homeopathy Life Mine Play Pursuit Trival
Had your forefathers, Wigglesworth, been as stupid as you are, the human race would never have succeeded in procreating itself.
ALAN BENNETT

Human People Proceed Procreate Race Standard Stupid
But most men regard their life as a poem that women threaten.
ALAN BENNETT

Men Most Poem Regard Threaten Women
Some local boys come in and there is a bit of chat between them and the fish-fryer about whether the kestrel under the counter is for sale.
ALAN BENNETT

Between Bit Boy Chat Counter Fish Fryer Local Sale Some Under
What she was finding also was how one book led to another, doors kept opening wherever she turned and the days weren’t long enough for the reading she wanted to do.
ALAN BENNETT

Another Book Door Find Kept Open Process Turn
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
At eighty things do not occur; they recur.
ALAN BENNETT

Eighty Occur Recur Thing
Why is it always the “intelligent” people who are socialists?
ALAN BENNETT

Always Intelligent People Socialist
You don’t put your life into your books, you find it there.
ALAN BENNETT

Book Find Into Life Put
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
Reading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting. Briefing closes down a subject, reading opens it up.
ALAN BENNETT

Brief Close Down Invite Open Perpetually Raed Subject Up
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
I write plays about things that I can’t resolve in my mind. I try to root things out.
ALAN BENNETT

Mind Out Play Resolve Root Thing Write

It’s like going to a place that you’ve never been to before – you’ve got a picture of it and then you go there and that picture is totally wiped out by the reality.

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It’s like going to a place that you’ve never been to before – you’ve got a picture of it and then you go there and that picture is totally wiped out by the reality.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Alan Bennett Quotes