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No mention of God. They keep Him up their sleeves for as long as they can, vicars do. They know it puts people off.

Alan Bennett

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.
ALAN BENNETT

Bent Block Coat Drabber Excrement Hanger Insane Life Moment Root Some Step Swill
But then, when I did go, the contrast between Leeds, which was very black and sooty in those days, and Cambridge, which seemed like something out of a fairystory, in the grip of a hard frost, was just wonderful.
ALAN BENNETT

Balck Cambridge Contrast Day Fairstory Frost Hard Leed Seem Something Sooty Wonderful
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.
ALAN BENNETT

Done Kindness Nor Read Seem Think Write
You don’t put your life into your books, you find it there.
ALAN BENNETT

Book Find Into Life Put
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
ALAN BENNETT

Alone Cistern Cold Full Loud Seat Sit Sixty
Cloisters, ancient libraries … I was confusing learning with the smell of cold stone.
ALAN BENNETT

Ancient Cold Confuse Country Learn Library Smell Stone
I have never understood disliking for war. It panders to instincts already catered for within the scope of any respectable domestic establishment.
ALAN BENNETT

Already Cater Dislike Domestic Instinct Respect Able Scope Understood
You go to a book to have your convictions corroborated.
ALAN BENNETT

Book Conviction Corroborate Have
Nature played a cruel trick on her by giving her a waxed mustache.
ALAN BENNETT

Cruel Give Nature Paly Trick Waxed
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
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
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

Go Like Out Pace Picture Reality Total Wipe
The Breed never dies. Sapper, Buchan, Dornford Yates, practitioners in that school of Snobbery withViolence that runs like a thread of good-class tweed through twentieth-century literature.
ALAN BENNETT

Breed Class Die Good Like Literature never People Practitioner Run School Snobbery Thread Violence
A bookshelf is as particular to its owner as are his or her clothes; a personality is stamped on a library just as a shoe is shaped by the foot.
ALAN BENNETT

Bookshelf Library Particular People Perform Stamp
I turned down a knighthood. It would be like having to wear a suit every day of your life.
ALAN BENNETT

Day Down Have Knighthood Life Suit Turn Wear
A book is a device to ignite the imagination.
ALAN BENNETT

Book Device Ignite Imagination
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?
ALAN BENNETT

Civilization Day End Know Other Pee Somebody Thought
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
If you find yourself born in Barnsley and then set your sights on being Virginia Woolf it is not going to be roses all the way.
ALAN BENNETT

Being Born Find Go People Rose Sight Virginia Way Wool Yourself
Mark my words, when a society has to resort to the lavatory for its humour, the writing is on the wall.
ALAN BENNETT

Humour Lavatory Mark Resort Society Wall Word Write
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
Clichés can be quite fun. That’s how they got to be clichés.
ALAN BENNETT

Clitch Fun Got Quite
The trouble is, as soon as you’ve chosen somebody it obscures anybody else you might have thought of.
ALAN BENNETT

Anybody Chosen Else Night Obscure Somebody Soon Thought Trouble
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
Children always assume the sexual lives of their parents come to a grinding halt at their conception.
ALAN BENNETT

Always Assume Children Come Conception Grind Live Parent Sexual
Those who have known the famous are publicly debriefed of their memories.
ALAN BENNETT

Debrief Know Memories Memory Ous Publicly

No mention of God. They keep Him up their sleeves for as long as they can, vicars do. They know it puts people off.

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No mention of God. They keep Him up their sleeves for as long as they can, vicars do. They know it puts people off.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Alan Bennett Quotes