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 BENNETTPhilip Larkin used to cheer himself up by looking in the mirror and saying the line from Rebecca, ‘I am Mrs de Winter now!
ALAN BENNETTThat’s a bit like asking a man crawling across the Sahara whether he would prefer Perrier or Malvern water.
ALAN BENNETTI saw someone peeing in Jermym Street the other day. I thought, is this the end of civilization as we know it? Or is it simply someone peeing in Jermyn Street?
ALAN BENNETTA bookshelf is as particular to its owner as are his or her clothes; a personality is stamped on a library just as a shoe is shaped by the foot.
ALAN BENNETTOne of the hardest things for a teacher to learn is not to try and tell them.
ALAN BENNETTSometimes there is no next time, no time-outs, no second chances. Sometimes it’s now or never.
ALAN BENNETTA book is a device to ignite the imagination.
ALAN BENNETTI have never understood disliking for war. It panders to instincts already catered for within the scope of any respectable domestic establishment.
ALAN BENNETTBooks generally just confirm you in what you have, perhaps unwittingly, decided to do already.
ALAN BENNETTIf I am doing nothing, I like to be doing nothing to some purpose. That is what leisure means.
ALAN BENNETTReading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting.
ALAN BENNETTStandards are always out of date. That’s what makes them standards.
ALAN BENNETTYou 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 BENNETTWhat she was finding also was how one book led to another, doors kept opening wherever she turned and the days weren’t long enough for the reading she wanted to do.
ALAN BENNETTOf course they’re out of date. Standards are always out of date. That is what makes them standards.
ALAN BENNETTI bet Tom Stoppard doesn’t have to do this’ or There is no doubt David Hare would have deputed this to an underling.’
ALAN BENNETT