Alan Bennett Quotes

A book is a device to ignite the imagination.

Definition of a classic: a book everyone is assumed to have read and often thinks they have.

So boring you fall asleep halfway through her name.

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?

If I had to sum up my work, I suppose that’s it really: I’m taking the pith out of reality.

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.

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.

It’s subjunctive history. You know, the subjunctive? The mood used when something may or may not have happened. When it is imagined.

You always know when you’re going to arrive. If you go by car, you don’t. Apart from anything else, I prefer cycling. It puts you in a good mood, I find.

A book, as it were, closes the book.