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I suppose I’m the only person who remembers one of the most exciting of his ballets-it’s the fruit of an unlikely collaboration between Nijinsky on the one hand and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle on the other.

Alan Bennett

At eighty things do not occur; they recur.
ALAN BENNETT

Eighty Occur Recur Thing
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

Between Diminish Fart Imagine Impossible Person Proportion Space Time Whole Stoy
Authors, she soon decided, were probably best met within the pages of their novels, and were as much creatures of the reader’s imagination as the characters in their books.
ALAN BENNETT

Author Best Character Creature Decide Imagination Met Much Novel Page Probably Reader Soon
It’s much easier to follow something that’s not been as successful as this.
ALAN BENNETT

Been Easie Follow Much Something Successful
And one of the historian’s jobs is to anticipate what our perspective of that period will be… even on the Holocaust.
ALAN BENNETT

Anticipate Historian Holocaust Period Perspective Remote
If you find yourself born in Barnsley and then set your sights on being Virginia Woolf it is not going to be roses all the way.
ALAN BENNETT

Being Born Find Go People Rose Sight Virginia Way Wool Yourself
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.
ALAN BENNETT

Dozen Eventually Experience Extent Half History Own Try
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.”
ALAN BENNETT

Beautiful Figure Final Grasp Inessential Land Large Nobel Overcoat Prerogative Prize Scheme Thing Waste
What I’m above all primarily concerned with is the substance of life, the pith of reality.
ALAN BENNETT

Above Concern Pith Primarily Reality Substance
The 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

Crise Majority People Perform Spotlight Them
Art comes out of art; it begins with imitation, often in the form of parody, and it’s in the process of imitating the voice of others that one comes to learn the sound of one’s own.
ALAN BENNETT

Art Begin Come Form Imitate Parofy Process Voice
You don’t put your life into your books, you find it there.
ALAN BENNETT

Book Find Into Life Put
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

Bookshelf Library Particular People Perform Stamp
Cloisters, ancient libraries … I was confusing learning with the smell of cold stone.
ALAN BENNETT

Ancient Cold Confuse Country Learn Library Smell Stone
Books, bread and butter, mashed potato – one finishes what’s on one’s plate. That’s always been my philosophy.
ALAN BENNETT

Book Bread Butter Finish Mash One Philosophy Plate Potato
His writing is that of someone whose whole life was spent in apartments, with lifts, stairwells, muffled voices behind closed doors, and sounds through walls.
ALAN BENNETT

Apartment Door Someone Sound Spent Wall Write

I suppose I’m the only person who remembers one of the most exciting of his ballets-it’s the fruit of an unlikely collaboration between Nijinsky on the one hand and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle on the other.

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I suppose I’m the only person who remembers one of the most exciting of his ballets-it’s the fruit of an unlikely collaboration between Nijinsky on the one hand and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle on the other.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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