Put him in a nice detached villa and he’d never have written a word.
ALAN BENNETTOnly when I mention it to W. does he explain Kestrel is now a lager. I imagine the future is going to contain an increasing number of incidents like this.
More Alan Bennett Quotes
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And one of the historian’s jobs is to anticipate what our perspective of that period will be… even on the Holocaust.
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Life is generally something that happens elsewhere.
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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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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.
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I can walk. It’s just that I’m so rich I don’t need to.
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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.
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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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We don’t see it, and because we don’t see it this means that there is no period so remote as the recent past.
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And if it can be explained that it can be explained away.’ ‘But this is History. Distance yourselves.
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[B]riefing is not reading. In fact it is the antithesis of reading. Briefing is terse, factual and to the point.
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In the way of circumstances and background to transcend I had everything an artist could possibly want. It was practically a blueprint.
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I saw someone peeing in Jermym Street the other day. I thought, is this the end of civilization as we know it? Or is it simply someone peeing in Jermyn Street?
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Were we closer to the ground as children, or is the grass emptier now?
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The liturgy is best treated and read as if it’s someone announcing the departure of trains.
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I’m for the freedom of expression, given that it will be under strict control.
ALAN BENNETT