Quote

If I am doing nothing, I like to be doing nothing to some purpose. That is what leisure means.

Alan Bennett

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Alan Bennett
Age: 90
Born: 1934
Born: May 9
Actor
Comedian
Diarist
Film Director
Playwright
Screenwriter
Stage Actor
Writer
Mean
Work
Like
Leisure
Purpose
Means
Nothing

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At eighty things do not occur they recur.
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Life is like a box of sardines and we are all looking for the key.
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An article on playwrights in the Daily Mail , listed according to Hard Left, Soft Left, Hard Right, Soft Right and Centre. I am not listed. I should probably come under Soft Centre.
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History is a commentary on the various and continuing incapabilities of men. What is history? History is women following behind with the bucket.
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Philip Larkin used to cheer himself up by looking in the mirror and saying the line from Rebecca, 'I am Mrs de Winter now!
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To play Trivial Pursuit with a life like mine could be said to be a form of homeopathy.
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Why is it always the intelligent people who are socialists?
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Memories are not shackles, Franklin, they are garlands.
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Here I sit, alone at 60, Bald and fat and full of sin Cold the seat, and loud the cistern As I read the (Harpic) (Lysol) tin
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Those who have known the famous are publicly debriefed of their memories, knowing as their own dusk falls that they will only be remembered for remembering someone else.
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So boring you fall asleep halfway through her name.
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Cancer, like any other illness, is a bore.
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What I'm above all primarily concerned with is the substance of life, the pith of reality. If I had to sum up my work, I suppose that's it really: I'm taking the pith out of reality.
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I lack what the English call character, by which they mean the power to refrain.
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I think the writer's quite low down in the hierarchy really. But the fact that they took the piss out of Nicholas [Hynter] who, besides being the director, is also director of the National Theatre is, I'd have thought, slightly more risky.
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I turned down a knighthood. It would be like having to wear a suit every day of your life.
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The days weren't long enough for the reading she wanted to do.
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We were put to Dickens as children but it never quite took. That unremitting humanity soon had me cheesed off.
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I can walk. It's just that I'm so rich I don't need to.
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A book is a device to ignite the imagination.
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