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The Breed never dies. Sapper, Buchan, Dornford Yates, practitioners in that school of Snobbery withViolence that runs like a thread of good-class tweed through twentieth-century literature.

Alan Bennett

Reading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting.
ALAN BENNETT

Discursive Invite Perpetual Raed Untidy
I’ve never seen the point of the sea, except where it meets the land. The shore has a point. The sea has none.
ALAN BENNETT

Except Land Meet never Point Sea Seen Shore
I think perhaps that’s why I live in Ibiza, because the blue of the Mediterranean, you see, reminds me of the blue of the eyes of those Doncaster miners.
ALAN BENNETT

Blue Eye Live Perhaps Remind Think
If I had to sum up my work, I suppose that’s it really: I’m taking the pith out of reality.
ALAN BENNETT

Pity Reality Really Sum Suppose Talk Work
Children always assume the sexual lives of their parents come to a grinding halt at their conception.
ALAN BENNETT

Always Assume Children Come Conception Grind Live Parent Sexual
You must take people as they come. Remember, too that though you will generally know more about the condition than the patient, it is the patient who has the condition and this if nothing else bestows on him or her a kind of wisdom.
ALAN BENNETT

Condition Else Generally Kind Nothing Patient People Remember Wisdom
Books are not about passing time. They’re about other lives. Other worlds.
ALAN BENNETT

Book Live Other Pass Time World
I think the writer’s quite low down in the hierarchy really. But the fact that they took the piss out of Nicholas [Hynter] who, besides being the director, is also director of the National Theatre is, I’d have thought, slightly more risky.
ALAN BENNETT

Besides Director Down Hierarchy More Piss Place Quite Really Risky Think Took Writer
We still don’t like to admit the war was even partly our fault because so many of our people died.
ALAN BENNETT

Admit Die Fault Many Partly People So Still War
Kafka could never have written as he did had he lived in a house.
ALAN BENNETT

House Live never Write
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
The Breed never dies. Sapper, Buchan, Dornford Yates, practitioners in that school of Snobbery withViolence that runs like a thread of good-class tweed through twentieth-century literature.
ALAN BENNETT

Breed Class Die Good Like Literature never People Practitioner Run School Snobbery Thread Violence
Books, bread and butter, mashed potato – one finishes what’s on one’s plate. That’s always been my philosophy.
ALAN BENNETT

Book Bread Butter Finish Mash One Philosophy Plate Potato
There are more microbes per person than the entire population of the world.
ALAN BENNETT

Entire Microbe More Person Population World
…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
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
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
Sometimes there is no next time, no time-outs, no second chances. Sometimes it’s now or never.
ALAN BENNETT

Chance never Next Now Out Sometimes Time
I have never understood disliking for war. It panders to instincts already catered for within the scope of any respectable domestic establishment.
ALAN BENNETT

Already Cater Dislike Domestic Instinct Respect Able Scope Understood
A photograph on every mantlepiece. And all this mourning has veiled the truth. It’s not so much lest we forget, as lest we remember.
ALAN BENNETT

Every Forget Lest Mantlepiece Mourn Much Photograph Remember Veiled
You go to a book to have your convictions corroborated.
ALAN BENNETT

Book Conviction Corroborate Have
Standards are always out of date. That’s what makes them standards.
ALAN BENNETT

Always Date Makem Standard Standard
Here I sit, alone at 60, Bald and fat and full of sin Cold the seat, and loud the cistern As I read the (Harpic) (Lysol) tin
ALAN BENNETT

Alone Cistern Cold Full Loud Seat Sit Sixty
The nearest my parents came to alcohol was at Holy Communion and they utterly overestimated its effects.
ALAN BENNETT

Alcohol Communion Effect Holy Near Overestimate Parent Utterly
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.
ALAN BENNETT

Author Best Character Creature Decide Imagination Met Much Novel Page Probably Reader Soon
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.
ALAN BENNETT

Done Kindness Nor Read Seem Think Write
One of the hardest things for boys to learn is that a teacher is human.
ALAN BENNETT

Hardest Human One Learn Teacher Thing

The Breed never dies. Sapper, Buchan, Dornford Yates, practitioners in that school of Snobbery withViolence that runs like a thread of good-class tweed through twentieth-century literature.

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The Breed never dies. Sapper, Buchan, Dornford Yates, practitioners in that school of Snobbery withViolence that runs like a thread of good-class tweed through twentieth-century literature.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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