black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

I don’t talk very well. With writing, you’ve time to get it right. Also I’ve found the more I talk the less I write, and if I didn’t write no one would want me to talk anyway.

Alan Bennett

If I am doing nothing, I like to be doing nothing to some purpose. That is what leisure means.
ALAN BENNETT

Do Leisure Mean Nothing Purpose Some
No mention of God. They keep Him up their sleeves for as long as they can, vicars do. They know it puts people off.
ALAN BENNETT

Do God Him Keep Long Mention No Sleeve Vicar
I can walk. It’s just that I’m so rich I don’t need to.
ALAN BENNETT

Just Need Rich Walk
Cloisters, ancient libraries … I was confusing learning with the smell of cold stone.
ALAN BENNETT

Ancient Cold Confuse Country Learn Library Smell Stone
f they’d been working with Alec Guinness, for instance, they wouldn’t have known they were born if they’d not towed the line!
ALAN BENNETT

Alec Been Born Business Instance Work
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.
ALAN BENNETT

Bent Block Coat Drabber Excrement Hanger Insane Life Moment Root Some Step Swill
But the headmaster happened to have been to Cambridge and decided to try and push some of us towards Oxford and Cambridge.
ALAN BENNETT

Cambridge Decide Happen Headmaster Oxford Push Some Try
Had your forefathers, Wigglesworth, been as stupid as you are, the human race would never have succeeded in procreating itself.
ALAN BENNETT

Human People Proceed Procreate Race Standard Stupid
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

Assume Bottom Caning Dismiss Disqualify Dream Half Illogically Nation Schoolgirl Shy Work
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

Beautiful Figure Final Grasp Inessential Land Large Nobel Overcoat Prerogative Prize Scheme Thing Waste
Culminating with a man in a white coat saying to one kindly, “And now can you tell me the name of the Prime Minister?”
ALAN BENNETT

Can Coat Culminate Kindly Man Name Prime Minister Say Tell White
You have the knowledge but that does not entitle you to be superior. Knowledge makes you the servant not the master.
ALAN BENNETT

Entitle Knowledge Master Servant Superior
Soft Left, Hard Right, Soft Right and Centre. I am not listed. I should probably come under Soft Centre.
ALAN BENNETT

Come Hard Left List Probably Right Soft Under
Cancer, like any other illness, is a bore.
ALAN BENNETT

Bore Cancer Like One Liner Otehrillness
Schweitzer in the Congo did not derive more moral credit than Larkin did for living in Hull.
ALAN BENNETT

Congo Country Credit Derive Hull Larkin Live More People
…she felt about reading what some writers felt about writing: that it was impossible not to do it and that at this late stage of her life she had been chosen to read as others were chosen to write.
ALAN BENNETT

Chosen Felt Impossible Late Read She Stage Writer

I don’t talk very well. With writing, you’ve time to get it right. Also I’ve found the more I talk the less I write, and if I didn’t write no one would want me to talk anyway.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

I don’t talk very well. With writing, you’ve time to get it right. Also I’ve found the more I talk the less I write, and if I didn’t write no one would want me to talk anyway.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Alan Bennett Quotes