Our perspective on the past alters. Looking back, immediately in front of us is dead ground.
ALAN BENNETTI’m not good at precise, coherent argument. But plays are suited to incoherent argument, put into the mouths of fallible people.
More Alan Bennett Quotes
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It’s much easier to follow something that’s not been as successful as this.
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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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Here I sit, alone at 60, Bald and fat and full of sin Cold the seat, and loud the cistern As I read the (Harpic) (Lysol) tin
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Those who have known the famous are publicly debriefed of their memories.
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I’ve never forgotten that experience. But I had nobody at school that was either like Hector or Irwin.
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Reading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting.
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Philip Larkin used to cheer himself up by looking in the mirror and saying the line from Rebecca, ‘I am Mrs de Winter now!
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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 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.”
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My films are about embarrassment.
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We have fish and chips, which W. and I fetch from the shop in Settle market-place.
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[B]riefing is not reading. In fact it is the antithesis of reading. Briefing is terse, factual and to the point.
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You always know when you’re going to arrive. If you go by car, you don’t. Apart from anything else, I prefer cycling. It puts you in a good mood, I find.
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Life is like a box of sardines and we are all looking for the key.
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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 BENNETT






