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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

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
Nor did they seem to think one had done them a kindness by reading their writings. Rather they had done one the kindness by writing them.
ALAN BENNETT

Done Kindness Nor Read Seem Think Write
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
Illogically, I tend to assume that if you ( Philip Larkin) dream of caning schoolgirls bottoms, it disqualifies you from dismissing half the nation as work-shy.
ALAN BENNETT

Assume Bottom Caning Dismiss Disqualify Dream Half Illogically Nation Schoolgirl Shy Work
Books are not about passing time. They’re about other lives. Other worlds.
ALAN BENNETT

Book Live Other Pass Time World
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
A photograph on every mantlepiece. And all this mourning has veiled the truth. It’s not so much lest we forget, as lest we remember.
ALAN BENNETT

Every Forget Lest Mantlepiece Mourn Much Photograph Remember Veiled
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
Once I start a book I finish it. That was the way one was brought up.
ALAN BENNETT

Book Bought Finish Once Start Way
The best moments in reading are when you come across something – a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things – which you had thought special and particular to you.
ALAN BENNETT

Across Best Come Feel Look Moment Raed Something Special Particular Thought
A 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 BENNETT

Proprietor Composite Made Neighbour People Publisher Remembrance Though Too
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
Books generally just confirm you in what you have, perhaps unwittingly, decided to do already.
ALAN BENNETT

Already Book Confirm Decide Generally Just Perhaps Unwittingly
The majority of people perform well in a crisis and when the spotlight is on them; it’s on the Sunday afternoons of this life, when nobody is looking, that the spirit falters.
ALAN BENNETT

Crise Majority People Perform Spotlight Them
We still don’t like to admit the war was even partly our fault because so many of our people died.
ALAN BENNETT

Admit Die Fault Many Partly People So Still War
Reading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting. Briefing closes down a subject, reading opens it up.
ALAN BENNETT

Brief Close Down Invite Open Perpetually Raed Subject Up

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.

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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

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