They may not have two spondees to rub together but they still want to pen their saga untrammelled by life-threatening activities like trailing round Sainsbury’s, emptying the dishwasher or going to the nativity play.
ALAN BENNETTBut then books, as I’m sure you know, seldom prompt a course of action.
More Alan Bennett Quotes
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I bet Tom Stoppard doesn’t have to do this’ or There is no doubt David Hare would have deputed this to an underling.’
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Sometimes there is no next time, no time-outs, no second chances. Sometimes it’s now or never.
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But then books, as I’m sure you know, seldom prompt a course of action.
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We started off trying to set up a small anarchist community, but people wouldn’t obey the rules.
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Those who have known the famous are publicly debriefed of their memories.
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Standards are always out of date. That’s what makes them standards.
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I have never understood disliking for war. It panders to instincts already catered for within the scope of any respectable domestic establishment.
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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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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.
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One reads for pleasure…it is not a public duty.
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To play Trivial Pursuit with a life like mine could be said to be a form of homeopathy.
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It’s the one species I wouldn’t mind seeing vanish from the face of the earth.
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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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Some local boys come in and there is a bit of chat between them and the fish-fryer about whether the kestrel under the counter is for sale.
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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.
ALAN BENNETT






