Memories are not shackles, Franklin, they are garlands.
ALAN BENNETTAt eighty things do not occur; they recur.
More Alan Bennett Quotes
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However bad the weather, Dad never drove to church because Mam thought the sacrament might make him incapable on the return journey.
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I lack what the English call character, by which they mean the power to refrain.
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Deluded liberal that I am, I persist in thinking that those with a streak of sexual unorthodoxy ought to be more tolerant of their fellows than those who lead an entirely godly, righteous and sober life.
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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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But the headmaster happened to have been to Cambridge and decided to try and push some of us towards Oxford and Cambridge.
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The appeal of reading, she thought, lay in its indifference: there was something undeferring about literature.
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Your whole life is on the other side of the glass. And there is nobody watching.
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It seems to me the mark of a civilized society that certain privileges should be taken for granted such as education, health care and the safety to walk the streets.
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I’m all in favour of free expression provided it’s kept rigidly under control.
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I’ve never seen the point of the sea, except where it meets the land. The shore has a point. The sea has none.
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Sometimes there is no next time, no time-outs, no second chances. Sometimes it’s now or never.
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Books are not about passing the time. They’re about other lives. Other worlds.
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History is a commentary on the various and continuing incapabilities of men. What is history? History is women following behind with the bucket.
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The liturgy is best treated and read as if it’s someone announcing the departure of trains.
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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.
ALAN BENNETT