…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…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 BENNETTI tried to explain to her the significance of the great poet, but without much success,
ALAN BENNETTOf course they’re out of date. Standards are always out of date. That is what makes them standards.
ALAN BENNETTMy experience came before most of you were born.
ALAN BENNETTDeluded 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 BENNETTTo begin with, it’s true, she read with trepidation and some unease.
ALAN BENNETTIf you think squash is a competitive activity, try flower arranging.
ALAN BENNETTBooks are not about passing time. They’re about other lives. Other worlds.
ALAN BENNETTWe were put to Dickens as children but it never quite took. That unremitting humanity soon had me cheesed off.
ALAN BENNETTOf course my standards are out of date! That’s why they’re called standards.
ALAN BENNETTPolly: Education with socialists, it’s like sex, all right as long as you don’t have to pay for it.
ALAN BENNETTI write plays about things that I can’t resolve in my mind. I try to root things out.
ALAN BENNETT[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 BENNETTAt eighty things do not occur; they recur.
ALAN BENNETTWe 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 BENNETTYou have the knowledge but that does not entitle you to be superior. Knowledge makes you the servant not the master.
ALAN BENNETT