Artists, celebrated for their humanity, they turn out to be scarcely human at all.
ALAN BENNETTLife is rather like a tin of sardines – we’re all of us looking for the key.
More Alan Bennett Quotes
-
-
The best moments in reading are when you come across something – a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things – which you had thought special and particular to you.
ALAN BENNETT -
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 -
A composite too are the neighbours, Pauline and Rufus, though I have made Rufus a publisher in remembrance of my neighbour, the late Colin Haycraft, the proprietor of Duckworth’s.
ALAN BENNETT -
The masters had no idea what was expected of you in the scholarship exam, so you just had to busk it really.
ALAN BENNETT -
No mention of God. They keep Him up their sleeves for as long as they can, vicars do. They know it puts people off.
ALAN BENNETT -
Were we closer to the ground as children, or is the grass emptier now?
ALAN BENNETT -
I’m for the freedom of expression, given that it will be under strict control.
ALAN BENNETT -
But then books, as I’m sure you know, seldom prompt a course of action.
ALAN BENNETT -
The majority of people perform well in a crisis and when the spotlight is on them; it’s on the Sunday afternoons of this life, when nobody is looking, that the spirit falters.
ALAN BENNETT -
Kafka could never have written as he did had he lived in a house.
ALAN BENNETT -
I write plays about things that I can’t resolve in my mind. I try to root things out.
ALAN BENNETT -
I’ve never seen the point of the sea, except where it meets the land. The shore has a point. The sea has none.
ALAN BENNETT -
That’s a bit like asking a man crawling across the Sahara whether he would prefer Perrier or Malvern water.
ALAN BENNETT -
Sometimes there is no next time, no time-outs, no second chances. Sometimes it’s now or never.
ALAN BENNETT -
I turned down a knighthood. It would be like having to wear a suit every day of your life.
ALAN BENNETT