I’m all in favour of free expression provided it’s kept rigidly under control.
ALAN BENNETTI’m all in favour of free expression provided it’s kept rigidly under control.
More Alan Bennett Quotes
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Put him in a nice detached villa and he’d never have written a word.
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The sheer endlessness of books outfaced her and she had no idea how to go on; there was no system to her reading, with one book leading to another, and often she had two or three on the go at the same time.
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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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Cancer, like any other illness, is a bore.
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A bookshelf is as particular to its owner as are his or her clothes; a personality is stamped on a library just as a shoe is shaped by the foot.
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One of the hardest things for a teacher to learn is not to try and tell them.
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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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Artists, celebrated for their humanity, they turn out to be scarcely human at all.
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To begin with, it’s true, she read with trepidation and some unease.
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I have never understood disliking for war. It panders to instincts already catered for within the scope of any respectable domestic establishment.
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Life is like a box of sardines and we are all looking for the key.
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…she felt about reading what some writers felt about writing: that it was impossible not to do it and that at this late stage of her life she had been chosen to read as others were chosen to write.
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Cloisters, ancient libraries … I was confusing learning with the smell of cold stone.
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But most men regard their life as a poem that women threaten.
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Nature played a cruel trick on her by giving her a waxed mustache.
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Some local boys come in and there is a bit of chat between them and the fish-fryer about whether the kestrel under the counter is for sale.
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One reads for pleasure…it is not a public duty.
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My films are about embarrassment.
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Those who have known the famous are publicly debriefed of their memories.
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Clichés can be quite fun. That’s how they got to be clichés.
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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.
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Here I sit, alone at 60, Bald and fat and full of sin Cold the seat, and loud the cistern As I read the (Harpic) (Lysol) tin
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Why do we not care to acknowledge them? The cattle, the body count.
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Were we closer to the ground as children, or is the grass emptier now?
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Never read the Bible as if it means something. Or at any rate don’t try and mean it. Nor prayers.
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Mark my words, when a society has to resort to the lavatory for its humour, the writing is on the wall.
ALAN BENNETT