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What I’m above all primarily concerned with is the substance of life, the pith of reality.

Alan Bennett

I suppose I’m the only person who remembers one of the most exciting of his ballets-it’s the fruit of an unlikely collaboration between Nijinsky on the one hand and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle on the other.
ALAN BENNETT

Nijinsky Ballet Collaboration Excite Fruit More Only Person Remember Suppose Unlikely
I think the writer’s quite low down in the hierarchy really. But the fact that they took the piss out of Nicholas [Hynter] who, besides being the director, is also director of the National Theatre is, I’d have thought, slightly more risky.
ALAN BENNETT

Besides Director Down Hierarchy More Piss Place Quite Really Risky Think Took Writer
Were we closer to the ground as children, or is the grass emptier now?
ALAN BENNETT

Children Closer Empire Grass Ground Now
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 BENNETT

All Effort Left Nothing Went
I don’t talk very well. With writing, you’ve time to get it right. Also I’ve found the more I talk the less I write, and if I didn’t write no one would want me to talk anyway.
ALAN BENNETT

Anyway Found More Take Talk Time Well Write
Sometimes there is no next time, no time-outs, no second chances. Sometimes it’s now or never.
ALAN BENNETT

Chance never Next Now Out Sometimes Time
Philip Larkin used to cheer himself up by looking in the mirror and saying the line from Rebecca, ‘I am Mrs de Winter now!
ALAN BENNETT

Cheer Himself I Lok Mirror Now People Skyline Use Winter
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
I wish they were like the White Rhinosix of them left in the Serengeti National Park, and all males.
ALAN BENNETT

Left Male National Park Serengeti White Wish
Schweitzer in the Congo did not derive more moral credit than Larkin did for living in Hull.
ALAN BENNETT

Congo Country Credit Derive Hull Larkin Live More People
And one of the historian’s jobs is to anticipate what our perspective of that period will be… even on the Holocaust.
ALAN BENNETT

Anticipate Historian Holocaust Period Perspective Remote
The thing I think about is that once you’ve done it, you then start to think about what you’re going to do next.
ALAN BENNETT

Done Go Next Once Start Think
I 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 BENNETT

Could Decide Idea Meet Notion Really Think
So, half a dozen of us tried – not all of us in history – and we all eventually got in. So, to that extent, it [The History Boys] comes out of my own experience.
ALAN BENNETT

Dozen Eventually Experience Extent Half History Own Try
…she felt about reading what some writers felt about writing: that it was impossible not to do it and that at this late stage of her life she had been chosen to read as others were chosen to write.
ALAN BENNETT

Chosen Felt Impossible Late Read She Stage Writer
It was the kind of library he had only read about in books.
ALAN BENNETT

Book Had Kind Library Only Raed

What I’m above all primarily concerned with is the substance of life, the pith of reality.

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What I’m above all primarily concerned with is the substance of life, the pith of reality.

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