Reading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting. Briefing closes down a subject, reading opens it up.
ALAN BENNETTIt’s the one species I wouldn’t mind seeing vanish from the face of the earth.
More Alan Bennett Quotes
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To begin with, it’s true, she read with trepidation and some unease.
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If, for instance, we’d made the film after the show had been to Broadway, it would have been exactly the same film but we would have been assured that they would have understood it.
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It seems to me the mark of a civilized society that certain privileges should be taken for granted such as education, health care and the safety to walk the streets.
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Our father the novelist; my husband the poet. He belongs to the ages – just don’t catch him at breakfast.
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Remember. You are a physician. You are not a policeman nor are you a minister of religion.
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One of the hardest things for boys to learn is that a teacher is human.
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All the effort went into getting there and then I had nothing left. I thought I’d got somewhere, then I found I had to go on.
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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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You go to a book to have your convictions corroborated.
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The days weren’t long enough for the reading she wanted to do.
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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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Our perspective on the past alters. Looking back, immediately in front of us is dead ground.
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Books, bread and butter, mashed potato – one finishes what’s on one’s plate. That’s always been my philosophy.
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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.
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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.”
ALAN BENNETT