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The appeal of reading, she thought, lay in its indifference: there was something undeferring about literature.

Alan Bennett

I’m for the freedom of expression, given that it will be under strict control.
ALAN BENNETT

Control Expression Freedom Give Strict
I lack what the English call character, by which they mean the power to refrain.
ALAN BENNETT

Call Character English Lack Mean Power Refrain
Books did not care who was reading them or whether one read them or not. All readers were equal, herself included. Literature, she thought, is a commonwealth; letters a republic.
ALAN BENNETT

Book Commonwealth Equal Herself Literature Read Reader Republic
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
That’s a bit like asking a man crawling across the Sahara whether he would prefer Perrier or Malvern water.
ALAN BENNETT

Across Ask Bid Crawl Malvern Perier Prefer Sahara Water
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
The Waste Land not figuring very largely in Mam’s scheme of things. “The thing is,” I said finally, “he won the Nobel Prize.” “Well,” she said, with that unerring grasp of inessentials which is the prerogative of mothers, “I’m not surprised. It was a beautiful overcoat.”
ALAN BENNETT

Beautiful Figure Final Grasp Inessential Land Large Nobel Overcoat Prerogative Prize Scheme Thing Waste
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
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’ve never forgotten that experience. But I had nobody at school that was either like Hector or Irwin.
ALAN BENNETT

Either Experience Forgotten Like Nobody People School
Polly: Education with socialists, it’s like sex, all right as long as you don’t have to pay for it.
ALAN BENNETT

Education Long Pay Polly Right Sex Socialist
We have fish and chips, which W. and I fetch from the shop in Settle market-place.
ALAN BENNETT

Chip Fetch Fish Market Place Settle Shop
I saw someone peeing in Jermym Street the other day. I thought, is this the end of civilization as we know it? Or is it simply someone peeing in Jermyn Street?
ALAN BENNETT

Civilization Day End Know Other Pee Somebody Thought
Because you should realise the Cenotaph and the Last Post and all that stuff is concerned, there’s no better way of forgetting something than by commemorating it.
ALAN BENNETT

Cenotaph Commentary Concern Last Post Realise Something Stuff
A book is a device to ignite the imagination.
ALAN BENNETT

Book Device Ignite Imagination
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 appeal of reading, she thought, lay in its indifference: there was something undeferring about literature.

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The appeal of reading, she thought, lay in its indifference: there was something undeferring about literature.

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