I lack what the English call character, by which they mean the power to refrain.
ALAN BENNETTIf you think squash is a competitive activity, try flower arranging.
More Alan Bennett Quotes
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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.
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A book is a device to ignite the imagination.
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Of course my standards are out of date! That’s why they’re called standards.
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The masters had no idea what was expected of you in the scholarship exam, so you just had to busk it really.
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Have you ever thought, headmaster, that your standards might perhaps be a little out of date?
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The longer I practise medicine, the more convinced I am there are only two types of cases: those that involve taking the trousers off and those that don’t.
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Life is generally something that happens elsewhere.
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I 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?
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My experience came before most of you were born.
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I’m for the freedom of expression, given that it will be under strict control.
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Remember. You are a physician. You are not a policeman nor are you a minister of religion.
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His writing is that of someone whose whole life was spent in apartments, with lifts, stairwells, muffled voices behind closed doors, and sounds through walls.
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Memories are not shackles, Franklin, they are garlands.
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A 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.
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Because you should realise the Cenotaph and the Last Post and all that stuff is concerned, there’s no better way of forgetting something than by commemorating it.
ALAN BENNETT