Reading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting. Briefing closes down a subject, reading opens it up.
ALAN BENNETTAnd now, here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out, and taken yours
More Alan Bennett Quotes
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Life is like a box of sardines and we are all looking for the key.
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What I’m above all primarily concerned with is the substance of life, the pith of reality.
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You have the knowledge but that does not entitle you to be superior. Knowledge makes you the servant not the master.
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I turned down a knighthood. It would be like having to wear a suit every day of your life.
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Of course they’re out of date. Standards are always out of date. That is what makes them standards.
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One of the hardest things for a teacher to learn is not to try and tell them.
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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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We still don’t like to admit the war was even partly our fault because so many of our people died.
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Artists, celebrated for their humanity, they turn out to be scarcely human at all.
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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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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.
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In the way of circumstances and background to transcend I had everything an artist could possibly want. It was practically a blueprint.
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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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If you find yourself born in Barnsley and then set your sights on being Virginia Woolf it is not going to be roses all the way.
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To begin with, it’s true, she read with trepidation and some unease.
ALAN BENNETT