All the effort went into getting there and then I had nothing left. I thought I’d got somewhere, then I found I had to go on.
ALAN BENNETTAll the effort went into getting there and then I had nothing left. I thought I’d got somewhere, then I found I had to go on.
ALAN BENNETTWere we closer to the ground as children, or is the grass emptier now?
ALAN BENNETTSome 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 BENNETTThe 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 BENNETTBut then books, as I’m sure you know, seldom prompt a course of action.
ALAN BENNETT[talking about the Holocaust] ‘But to put something in context is a step towards saying it can be understood and that it can be explained.
ALAN BENNETTAt 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 BENNETTBooks generally just confirm you in what you have, perhaps unwittingly, decided to do already.
ALAN BENNETTI write plays about things that I can’t resolve in my mind. I try to root things out.
ALAN BENNETTI had no idea of who could play it, no notion really. Then Richard came to see us but I don’t think it was decided at that meeting.
ALAN BENNETTHistory is a commentary on the various and continuing incapabilities of men. What is history? History is women following behind with the bucket.
ALAN BENNETTNever read the Bible as if it means something. Or at any rate don’t try and mean it. Nor prayers.
ALAN BENNETTThe appeal of reading, she thought, lay in its indifference: there was something undeferring about literature.
ALAN BENNETTI’ve never forgotten that experience. But I had nobody at school that was either like Hector or Irwin.
ALAN BENNETTA composite too are the neighbours, Pauline and Rufus, though I have made Rufus a publisher in remembrance of my neighbour, the late Colin Haycraft, the proprietor of Duckworth’s.
ALAN BENNETTI 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