Were we closer to the ground as children, or is the grass emptier now?
ALAN BENNETTWere we closer to the ground as children, or is the grass emptier now?
ALAN BENNETTIt’s much easier to follow something that’s not been as successful as this.
ALAN BENNETTBut most men regard their life as a poem that women threaten.
ALAN BENNETTMy school was a state school in Leeds and the headmaster usually sent students to Leeds University but he didn’t normally send them to Oxford or Cambridge.
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 BENNETTIt’s like going to a place that you’ve never been to before – you’ve got a picture of it and then you go there and that picture is totally wiped out by the reality.
ALAN BENNETTIt was the kind of library he had only read about in books.
ALAN BENNETTSome local boys come in and there is a bit of chat between them and the fish-fryer about whether the kestrel under the counter is for sale.
ALAN BENNETTI wish they were like the White Rhinosix of them left in the Serengeti National Park, and all males.
ALAN BENNETTOne of the hardest things for boys to learn is that a teacher is human.
ALAN BENNETTClichés can be quite fun. That’s how they got to be clichés.
ALAN BENNETTHave you ever thought, headmaster, that your standards might perhaps be a little out of date?
ALAN BENNETTIt [Cambridge] wasn’t a holy grail in the sense that I’d never been to Cambridge.
ALAN BENNETTTo begin with, it’s true, she read with trepidation and some unease.
ALAN BENNETTI can walk. It’s just that I’m so rich I don’t need to.
ALAN BENNETTArt comes out of art; it begins with imitation, often in the form of parody, and it’s in the process of imitating the voice of others that one comes to learn the sound of one’s own.
ALAN BENNETT