If I am doing nothing, I like to be doing nothing to some purpose. That is what leisure means.
ALAN BENNETTHave you ever thought, headmaster, that your standards might perhaps be a little out of date?
More Alan Bennett Quotes
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I think perhaps that’s why I live in Ibiza, because the blue of the Mediterranean, you see, reminds me of the blue of the eyes of those Doncaster miners.
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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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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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My films are about embarrassment.
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Deluded liberal that I am, I persist in thinking that those with a streak of sexual unorthodoxy ought to be more tolerant of their fellows than those who lead an entirely godly, righteous and sober life.
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The masters had no idea what was expected of you in the scholarship exam, so you just had to busk it really.
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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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I write plays about things that I can’t resolve in my mind. I try to root things out.
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Polly: Education with socialists, it’s like sex, all right as long as you don’t have to pay for it.
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Books are not about passing the time. They’re about other lives. Other worlds.
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Our perspective on the past alters. Looking back, immediately in front of us is dead ground.
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Why is it always the “intelligent” people who are socialists?
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A photograph on every mantlepiece. And all this mourning has veiled the truth. It’s not so much lest we forget, as lest we remember.
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Books are not about passing time. They’re about other lives. Other worlds.
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I’m not good at precise, coherent argument. But plays are suited to incoherent argument, put into the mouths of fallible people.
ALAN BENNETT






