Culminating with a man in a white coat saying to one kindly, “And now can you tell me the name of the Prime Minister?”
ALAN BENNETTHad your forefathers, Wigglesworth, been as stupid as you are, the human race would never have succeeded in procreating itself.
More Alan Bennett Quotes
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But then, when I did go, the contrast between Leeds, which was very black and sooty in those days, and Cambridge, which seemed like something out of a fairystory, in the grip of a hard frost, was just wonderful.
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The days weren’t long enough for the reading she wanted to do.
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History is a commentary on the various and continuing incapabilities of men. What is history? History is women following behind with the bucket.
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The Waste Land not figuring very largely in Mam’s scheme of things. “The thing is,” I said finally, “he won the Nobel Prize.” “Well,” she said, with that unerring grasp of inessentials which is the prerogative of mothers, “I’m not surprised. It was a beautiful overcoat.”
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I had no idea of who could play it, no notion really. Then Richard came to see us but I don’t think it was decided at that meeting.
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If you think squash is a competitive activity, try flower arranging.
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Standards are always out of date. That’s what makes them standards.
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Were we closer to the ground as children, or is the grass emptier now?
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To play Trivial Pursuit with a life like mine could be said to be a form of homeopathy.
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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.
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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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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 the headmaster happened to have been to Cambridge and decided to try and push some of us towards Oxford and Cambridge.
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Children always assume the sexual lives of their parents come to a grinding halt at their conception.
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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.
ALAN BENNETT