Quote

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

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
Full
Bald
Alone
Seat
Read
Seats
Fats
Birthday
Loud
Sin
Cistern
Cold
Tin

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It's subjunctive history. You know, the subjunctive? The mood used when something may or may not have happened. When it is imagined.
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Schweitzer in the Congo did not derive more moral credit than Larkin did for living in Hull.
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A book is a device to ignite the imagination.
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Polly: Education with socialists, it's like sex, all right as long as you don't have to pay for it.
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I write plays about things that I can't resolve in my mind. I try to root things out.
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The majority of people perform well in a crisis and when the spotlight is on them it's on the Sunday afternoons of this life, when nobody is looking, that the spirit falters.
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I can walk. It's just that I'm so rich I don't need to.
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There are more microbes per person than the entire population of the world. 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.
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Books are not about passing the time. They're about other lives. Other worlds.
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... Once I start a book I finish it. That was the way one was brought up. Books, bread and butter, mashed potato - one finishes what's on one's plate. That's always been my philosophy.
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[B]riefing is not reading. In fact it is the antithesis of reading. Briefing is terse, factual and to the point. Reading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting. Briefing closes down a subject, reading opens it up.
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If you think squash is a competitive activity, try flower arranging.
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A bookshelf is as particular to its owner as are his or her clothes a personality is stamped on a library just as a shoe is shaped by the foot.
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At eighty things do not occur they recur.
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Books are not about passing time. They're about other lives. Other worlds. Far from wanting time to pass, one just wishes one had more of it. If one wanted to pass the time one could go to New Zealand.
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I'm all in favour of free expression provided it's kept rigidly under control.
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I'm for the freedom of expression, given that it will be under strict control.
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I don't talk very well. With writing, you've time to get it right. Also I've found the more I talk the less I write, and if I didn't write no one would want me to talk anyway.
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Never read the Bible as if it means something. Or at any rate don't try and mean it. Nor prayers. The liturgy is best treated and read as if it's someone announcing the departure of trains.
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I've never seen the point of the sea, except where it meets the land. The shore has a point. The sea has none.
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