If you think squash is a competitive activity, try flower arranging.
ALAN BENNETTOnce I start a book I finish it. That was the way one was brought up.
More Alan Bennett Quotes
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Here I sit, alone at 60, Bald and fat and full of sin Cold the seat, and loud the cistern As I read the (Harpic) (Lysol) tin
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I bet Tom Stoppard doesn’t have to do this’ or There is no doubt David Hare would have deputed this to an underling.’
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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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Of course they’re out of date. Standards are always out of date. That is what makes them standards.
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To begin with, it’s true, she read with trepidation and some unease.
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Polly: Education with socialists, it’s like sex, all right as long as you don’t have to pay for it.
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Reading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting. Briefing closes down a subject, reading opens it up.
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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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Schweitzer in the Congo did not derive more moral credit than Larkin did for living in Hull.
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I tried to explain to her the significance of the great poet, but without much success,
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Books are not about passing time. They’re about other lives. Other worlds.
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The trouble is, as soon as you’ve chosen somebody it obscures anybody else you might have thought of.
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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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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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[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.
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