Books are not about passing the time. They’re about other lives. Other worlds.
ALAN BENNETTChildren always assume the sexual lives of their parents come to a grinding halt at their conception.
More Alan Bennett Quotes
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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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And one of the historian’s jobs is to anticipate what our perspective of that period will be… even on the Holocaust.
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Only when I mention it to W. does he explain Kestrel is now a lager. I imagine the future is going to contain an increasing number of incidents like this.
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One of the hardest things for a teacher to learn is not to try and tell them.
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I’ve never seen the point of the sea, except where it meets the land. The shore has a point. The sea has none.
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Reading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting. Briefing closes down a subject, reading opens it up.
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Culminating with a man in a white coat saying to one kindly, “And now can you tell me the name of the Prime Minister?”
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Once I start a book I finish it. That was the way one was brought up.
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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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Life is like a box of sardines and we are all looking for the key.
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Standards are always out of date. That’s what makes them standards.
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They may not have two spondees to rub together but they still want to pen their saga untrammelled by life-threatening activities like trailing round Sainsbury’s, emptying the dishwasher or going to the nativity play.
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If you think squash is a competitive activity, try flower arranging.
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You go to a book to have your convictions corroborated.
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We were put to Dickens as children but it never quite took. That unremitting humanity soon had me cheesed off.
ALAN BENNETT