Put him in a nice detached villa and he’d never have written a word.
ALAN BENNETTSchweitzer in the Congo did not derive more moral credit than Larkin did for living in Hull.
More Alan Bennett Quotes
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Artists, celebrated for their humanity, they turn out to be scarcely human at all.
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My experience came before most of you were born.
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The appeal of reading, she thought, lay in its indifference: there was something undeferring about literature.
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One of the hardest things for boys to learn is that a teacher is human.
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What she was finding also was how one book led to another, doors kept opening wherever she turned and the days weren’t long enough for the reading she wanted to do.
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Imagine that. Per person. This means that if the time scale is diminished in proportion to that of space it would be quite possible for the whole story of Greece and Rome to be played out between farts.
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And now, here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out, and taken yours
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[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.
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The days weren’t long enough for the reading she wanted to do.
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It [Cambridge] wasn’t a holy grail in the sense that I’d never been to Cambridge.
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I’m not “happy” but I’m not unhappy about it.
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The liturgy is best treated and read as if it’s someone announcing the departure of trains.
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We were put to Dickens as children but it never quite took. That unremitting humanity soon had me cheesed off.
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No mention of God. They keep Him up their sleeves for as long as they can, vicars do. They know it puts people off.
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To begin with, it’s true, she read with trepidation and some unease.
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