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Books are not about passing the time. They’re about other lives. Other worlds.

Alan Bennett

I’m for the freedom of expression, given that it will be under strict control.
ALAN BENNETT

Control Expression Freedom Give Strict
It’s the one species I wouldn’t mind seeing vanish from the face of the earth.
ALAN BENNETT

Earth Face Mind One See Species
So, half a dozen of us tried – not all of us in history – and we all eventually got in. So, to that extent, it [The History Boys] comes out of my own experience.
ALAN BENNETT

Dozen Eventually Experience Extent Half History Own Try
Philip Larkin used to cheer himself up by looking in the mirror and saying the line from Rebecca, ‘I am Mrs de Winter now!
ALAN BENNETT

Cheer Himself I Lok Mirror Now People Skyline Use Winter
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
It’s like going to a place that you’ve never been to before – you’ve got a picture of it and then you go there and that picture is totally wiped out by the reality.
ALAN BENNETT

Go Like Out Pace Picture Reality Total Wipe
There is no such thing as a good script, onlya good film, and I’m conscious that my scripts often read better than they play.
ALAN BENNETT

Better Play Conscious Film Good No Often Raed Script Such Thing
It [Cambridge] wasn’t a holy grail in the sense that I’d never been to Cambridge.
ALAN BENNETT

Been Cambridge Grail Holy never Sense
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 BENNETT

Crise Majority People Perform Spotlight Them
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
Your whole life is on the other side of the glass. And there is nobody watching.
ALAN BENNETT

Glass Life Nobody Other Side Watch Whole
To read is to withdraw.To make oneself unavailable. One would feel easier about it if the pursuit inself were less…selfish.
ALAN BENNETT

Make Oneself Read Unavailable Withdraw
My school was a state school in Leeds and the headmaster usually sent students to Leeds University but he didn’t normally send them to Oxford or Cambridge.
ALAN BENNETT

Cambridge Headmaster Leed Oxford School State Student University Usually
Books generally just confirm you in what you have, perhaps unwittingly, decided to do already.
ALAN BENNETT

Already Book Confirm Decide Generally Just Perhaps Unwittingly
Above literature?’ said the Queen. ‘Who is above literature? You might as well say one was above humanity.
ALAN BENNETT

Above Humanity Literature might One Queen Said Well
You don’t put your life into your books, you find it there.
ALAN BENNETT

Book Find Into Life Put

Books are not about passing the time. They’re about other lives. Other worlds.

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Books are not about passing the time. They’re about other lives. Other worlds.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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