I 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ALAN BENNETTOf course my standards are out of date! That’s why they’re called standards.
More Alan Bennett Quotes
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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.
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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.
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The days weren’t long enough for the reading she wanted to do.
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A book, as it were, closes the book.
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I turned down a knighthood. It would be like having to wear a suit every day of your life.
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Polly: Education with socialists, it’s like sex, all right as long as you don’t have to pay for it.
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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.
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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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But most men regard their life as a poem that women threaten.
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You go to a book to have your convictions corroborated.
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That’s a bit like asking a man crawling across the Sahara whether he would prefer Perrier or Malvern water.
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My films are about embarrassment.
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Only when I mention it to W. does he explain Kestrel is now a lager. I imagine the future is going to contain an increasing number of incidents like this.
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I’m not good at precise, coherent argument. But plays are suited to incoherent argument, put into the mouths of fallible people.
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Remember. You are a physician. You are not a policeman nor are you a minister of religion.
ALAN BENNETT






