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The trouble is, as soon as you’ve chosen somebody it obscures anybody else you might have thought of.

Alan Bennett

They may not have two spondees to rub together but they still want to pen their saga untrammelled by life-threatening activities like trailing round Sainsbury’s, emptying the dishwasher or going to the nativity play.
ALAN BENNETT

Dishwasher Empt Nativity Pen Play Round Saga Sainsbury Threat Trailing
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’m for the freedom of expression, given that it will be under strict control.
ALAN BENNETT

Control Expression Freedom Give Strict
The masters had no idea what was expected of you in the scholarship exam, so you just had to busk it really.
ALAN BENNETT

Busk Exam Expect Ide Master Really Scholarship
I wish they were like the White Rhinosix of them left in the Serengeti National Park, and all males.
ALAN BENNETT

Left Male National Park Serengeti White Wish
Illogically, I tend to assume that if you ( Philip Larkin) dream of caning schoolgirls bottoms, it disqualifies you from dismissing half the nation as work-shy.
ALAN BENNETT

Assume Bottom Caning Dismiss Disqualify Dream Half Illogically Nation Schoolgirl Shy Work
Our father the novelist; my husband the poet. He belongs to the ages – just don’t catch him at breakfast.
ALAN BENNETT

Age Belong Breakfast Catch Father Husband Novelist Poet
At the drabber moments of my life (swilling some excrement from the steps, for instance, or rooting with a bent coat-hanger down a blocked sink) thoughts occur like.
ALAN BENNETT

Bent Block Coat Drabber Excrement Hanger Insane Life Moment Root Some Step Swill
Imagine that. Per person. This means that if the time scale is diminished in proportion to that of space it would be quite possible for the whole story of Greece and Rome to be played out between farts.
ALAN BENNETT

Between Diminish Fart Imagine Impossible Person Proportion Space Time Whole Stoy
Nor did they seem to think one had done them a kindness by reading their writings. Rather they had done one the kindness by writing them.
ALAN BENNETT

Done Kindness Nor Read Seem Think Write
Of course they’re out of date. Standards are always out of date. That is what makes them standards.
ALAN BENNETT

Always Course Date Make Out Standard
The appeal of reading, she thought, lay in its indifference: there was something undeferring about literature.
ALAN BENNETT

Appear Indifference Literature Read Something Through Underfy
Clichés can be quite fun. That’s how they got to be clichés.
ALAN BENNETT

Clitch Fun Got Quite
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
I think perhaps that’s why I live in Ibiza, because the blue of the Mediterranean, you see, reminds me of the blue of the eyes of those Doncaster miners.
ALAN BENNETT

Blue Eye Live Perhaps Remind Think
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

The trouble is, as soon as you’ve chosen somebody it obscures anybody else you might have thought of.

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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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