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

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
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
Authors, she soon decided, were probably best met within the pages of their novels, and were as much creatures of the reader’s imagination as the characters in their books.
ALAN BENNETT

Author Best Character Creature Decide Imagination Met Much Novel Page Probably Reader Soon
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
At eighty things do not occur; they recur.
ALAN BENNETT

Eighty Occur Recur Thing
I’m not good at precise, coherent argument. But plays are suited to incoherent argument, put into the mouths of fallible people.
ALAN BENNETT

Argument Coherent Fallible Good Incoherent Mouth People Play Precise Suit
An article on playwrights in the Daily Mail , listed according to Hard Left,
ALAN BENNETT

According Article Daily Hard Left List Mall Playwright
It [Cambridge] wasn’t a holy grail in the sense that I’d never been to Cambridge.
ALAN BENNETT

Been Cambridge Grail Holy never Sense
You have the knowledge but that does not entitle you to be superior. Knowledge makes you the servant not the master.
ALAN BENNETT

Entitle Knowledge Master Servant Superior
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
If I had to sum up my work, I suppose that’s it really: I’m taking the pith out of reality.
ALAN BENNETT

Pity Reality Really Sum Suppose Talk Work
Your whole life is on the other side of the glass. And there is nobody watching.
ALAN BENNETT

Glass Life Nobody Other Side Watch Whole
But then books, as I’m sure you know, seldom prompt a course of action.
ALAN BENNETT

Action Aure Book Buy Know Prompt Se; Dom
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
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
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.
ALAN BENNETT

Art Begin Come Form Imitate Parofy Process Voice

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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