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And 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

Alan Bennett

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.
ALAN BENNETT

Bookshelf Library Particular People Perform Stamp
Life is like a box of sardines and we are all looking for the key.
ALAN BENNETT

Al Box Life Look Sadness Sky
Definition of a classic: a book everyone is assumed to have read and often thinks they have.
ALAN BENNETT

Assume Book Classic Definition Everyone Often Read Think
It’s subjunctive history. You know, the subjunctive? The mood used when something may or may not have happened. When it is imagined.
ALAN BENNETT

Happen History Mood Something Subjunctive Use
What 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 BENNETT

Another Book Door Find Kept Open Process Turn
I write plays about things that I can’t resolve in my mind. I try to root things out.
ALAN BENNETT

Mind Out Play Resolve Root Thing Write
The liturgy is best treated and read as if it’s someone announcing the departure of trains.
ALAN BENNETT

Announce Best Departure Liturgy Rad Someone Train Treat
Reading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting. Briefing closes down a subject, reading opens it up.
ALAN BENNETT

Brief Close Down Invite Open Perpetually Raed Subject Up
…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
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.
ALAN BENNETT

Deluded Entire Fellow Goldy Liberal More Ought Persist Sexual Sober Streak Think Unorthodoxy
If, for instance, we’d made the film after the show had been to Broadway, it would have been exactly the same film but we would have been assured that they would have understood it.
ALAN BENNETT

Assure Broadway Exactly Film Instance Made Same Show Understand
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 BENNETT

Cheer Himself I Lok Mirror Now People Skyline Use Winter
[talking about the Holocaust] ‘But to put something in context is a step towards saying it can be understood and that it can be explained.
ALAN BENNETT

Context Explain Holocaust Say Something Step Talking Toward Understand
We don’t see it, and because we don’t see it this means that there is no period so remote as the recent past.
ALAN BENNETT

Down Mean No Past Period Recent Remote See
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
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

And 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

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And 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

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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