Have you ever thought, headmaster, that your standards might perhaps be a little out of date?
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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Artists, celebrated for their humanity, they turn out to be scarcely human at all.
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One of the hardest things for boys to learn is that a teacher is human.
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You go to a book to have your convictions corroborated.
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But most men regard their life as a poem that women threaten.
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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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We were put to Dickens as children but it never quite took. That unremitting humanity soon had me cheesed off.
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The sheer endlessness of books outfaced her and she had no idea how to go on; there was no system to her reading, with one book leading to another, and often she had two or three on the go at the same time.
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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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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.
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Art comes out of art; it begins with imitation, often in the form of parody, and it’s in the process of imitating the voice of others that one comes to learn the sound of one’s own.
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But then books, as I’m sure you know, seldom prompt a course of action.
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Books did not care who was reading them or whether one read them or not. All readers were equal, herself included. Literature, she thought, is a commonwealth; letters a republic.
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In the way of circumstances and background to transcend I had everything an artist could possibly want. It was practically a blueprint.
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If I am doing nothing, I like to be doing nothing to some purpose. That is what leisure means.
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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






