[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.
ALAN BENNETT[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.
ALAN BENNETTYour whole life is on the other side of the glass. And there is nobody watching.
ALAN BENNETTWe still don’t like to admit the war was even partly our fault because so many of our people died.
ALAN BENNETTThe 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 BENNETTWere we closer to the ground as children, or is the grass emptier now?
ALAN BENNETTIllogically, 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 BENNETTThe longer I practise medicine, the more convinced I am there are only two types of cases: those that involve taking the trousers off and those that don’t.
ALAN BENNETTI saw someone peeing in Jermym Street the other day. I thought, is this the end of civilization as we know it? Or is it simply someone peeing in Jermyn Street?
ALAN BENNETTCancer, like any other illness, is a bore.
ALAN BENNETTBooks are not about passing time. They’re about other lives. Other worlds.
ALAN BENNETTClichés can be quite fun. That’s how they got to be clichés.
ALAN BENNETTI’m not “happy” but I’m not unhappy about it.
ALAN BENNETTThe nearest my parents came to alcohol was at Holy Communion and they utterly overestimated its effects.
ALAN BENNETTTo play Trivial Pursuit with a life like mine could be said to be a form of homeopathy.
ALAN BENNETTSoft Left, Hard Right, Soft Right and Centre. I am not listed. I should probably come under Soft Centre.
ALAN BENNETTThe 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