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 BENNETTCloisters, ancient libraries … I was confusing learning with the smell of cold stone.
More Alan Bennett Quotes
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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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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.
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If I am doing nothing, I like to be doing nothing to some purpose. That is what leisure means.
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At the drabber moments of my life (swilling some excrement from the steps, for instance, or rooting with a bent coat-hanger down a blocked sink) thoughts occur like.
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I’m not “happy” but I’m not unhappy about it.
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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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History is a commentary on the various and continuing incapabilities of men. What is history? History is women following behind with the bucket.
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Nor did they seem to think one had done them a kindness by reading their writings. Rather they had done one the kindness by writing them.
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Our perspective on the past alters. Looking back, immediately in front of us is dead ground.
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There’s very little in the substance of [THE LADY IN THE VAN] which is not fact though some adjustments have had to be made.
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Cancer, like any other illness, is a bore.
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Life is rather like a tin of sardines – we’re all of us looking for the key.
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Soft Left, Hard Right, Soft Right and Centre. I am not listed. I should probably come under Soft Centre.
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Those who have known the famous are publicly debriefed of their memories.
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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.
ALAN BENNETT