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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.

Alan Bennett

I don’t talk very well. With writing, you’ve time to get it right. Also I’ve found the more I talk the less I write, and if I didn’t write no one would want me to talk anyway.
ALAN BENNETT

Anyway Found More Take Talk Time Well Write
The liturgy is best treated and read as if it’s someone announcing the departure of trains.
ALAN BENNETT

Announce Best Departure Liturgy Rad Someone Train Treat
I’m not “happy” but I’m not unhappy about it.
ALAN BENNETT

Happy Unhappy
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
ALAN BENNETT

Alone Cistern Cold Full Loud Seat Sit Sixty
[B]riefing is not reading. In fact it is the antithesis of reading. Briefing is terse, factual and to the point.
ALAN BENNETT

Antithesis Brief Fact Factual Point Raed Terse
Definition of a classic: a book everyone is assumed to have read and often thinks they have.
ALAN BENNETT

Assume Book Classic Definition Everyone Often Read Think
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 BENNETT

Can Coat Culminate Kindly Man Name Prime Minister Say Tell White
Illogically, 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 BENNETT

Assume Bottom Caning Dismiss Disqualify Dream Half Illogically Nation Schoolgirl Shy Work
The appeal of reading, she thought, lay in its indifference: there was something undeferring about literature.
ALAN BENNETT

Appear Indifference Literature Read Something Through Underfy
You don’t put your life into your books, you find it there.
ALAN BENNETT

Book Find Into Life Put
I think the writer’s quite low down in the hierarchy really. But the fact that they took the piss out of Nicholas [Hynter] who, besides being the director, is also director of the National Theatre is, I’d have thought, slightly more risky.
ALAN BENNETT

Besides Director Down Hierarchy More Piss Place Quite Really Risky Think Took Writer
It [Cambridge] wasn’t a holy grail in the sense that I’d never been to Cambridge.
ALAN BENNETT

Been Cambridge Grail Holy never Sense
The masters had no idea what was expected of you in the scholarship exam, so you just had to busk it really.
ALAN BENNETT

Busk Exam Expect Ide Master Really Scholarship
One of the hardest things for a teacher to learn is not to try and tell them.
ALAN BENNETT

Hardest Learn Not One Teacher Tell Them Thing Try
No mention of God. They keep Him up their sleeves for as long as they can, vicars do. They know it puts people off.
ALAN BENNETT

Do God Him Keep Long Mention No Sleeve Vicar
You must take people as they come. Remember, too that though you will generally know more about the condition than the patient, it is the patient who has the condition and this if nothing else bestows on him or her a kind of wisdom.
ALAN BENNETT

Condition Else Generally Kind Nothing Patient People Remember Wisdom

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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