black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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.

Alan Bennett

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
Once I start a book I finish it. That was the way one was brought up.
ALAN BENNETT

Book Bought Finish Once Start Way
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.
ALAN BENNETT

Book Commonwealth Equal Herself Literature Read Reader Republic
I think perhaps that’s why I live in Ibiza, because the blue of the Mediterranean, you see, reminds me of the blue of the eyes of those Doncaster miners.
ALAN BENNETT

Blue Eye Live Perhaps Remind Think
There’s very little in the substance of [THE LADY IN THE VAN] which is not fact though some adjustments have had to be made.
ALAN BENNETT

Adjustment Fact Lady Little Made Some Substance Through Van
Books are not about passing the time. They’re about other lives. Other worlds.
ALAN BENNETT

Book Live Other Pass Time World
We were put to Dickens as children but it never quite took. That unremitting humanity soon had me cheesed off.
ALAN BENNETT

Children Dicken Look never Put Quite
The trouble is, as soon as you’ve chosen somebody it obscures anybody else you might have thought of.
ALAN BENNETT

Anybody Chosen Else Night Obscure Somebody Soon Thought Trouble
A book is a device to ignite the imagination.
ALAN BENNETT

Book Device Ignite Imagination
Our father the novelist; my husband the poet. He belongs to the ages – just don’t catch him at breakfast.
ALAN BENNETT

Age Belong Breakfast Catch Father Husband Novelist Poet
Over the years Miss Shepherd was visited by a succession of social workers so the character in the play is a composite figure.
ALAN BENNETT

Character Composite Figure Over People Play Social Succession Visit Worker Year
My films are about embarrassment.
ALAN BENNETT

Embarrassment Film
Life is rather like a tin of sardines – we’re all of us looking for the key.
ALAN BENNETT

Key Life Look Rather Sardine Tin
You must take people as they come. Remember, too that though you will generally know more about the condition than the patient, it is the patient who has the condition and this if nothing else bestows on him or her a kind of wisdom.
ALAN BENNETT

Condition Else Generally Kind Nothing Patient People Remember Wisdom
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
Why is it always the “intelligent” people who are socialists?
ALAN BENNETT

Always Intelligent People Socialist

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Alan Bennett Quotes