Quote

I turned down a knighthood. It would be like having to wear a suit every day of your life.

Alan Bennett

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Alan Bennett
Age: 90
Born: 1934
Born: May 9
Actor
Comedian
Diarist
Film Director
Playwright
Screenwriter
Stage Actor
Writer
Turned
Wear
Every
Would
Life
Knighthood
Like
Suit
Awards
Suits

More quotes by Alan Bennett

Image
It [Cambridge] wasn't a holy grail in the sense that I'd never been to Cambridge. But then, when I did go, the contrast between Leeds, which was very black and sooty in those days, and Cambridge, which seemed like something out of a fairystory, in the grip of a hard frost, was just wonderful.
Alan Bennett
Image
The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - which you had thought special and particular to you. And now, here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out, and taken yours
Alan Bennett
Image
Reading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting.
Alan Bennett
Image
Above literature?' said the Queen. 'Who is above literature? You might as well say one was above humanity.
Alan Bennett
Image
God doesn't do notes, either. Did Jesus Christ say, Can I be excused the Crucifixion? No!
Alan Bennett
Image
If you think squash is a competitive activity, try flower arranging.
Alan Bennett
Image
Life is generally something that happens elsewhere.
Alan Bennett
Image
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
Image
One recipe for happiness is to have to sense of entitlement.' To this she added a star and noted at the bottom of the page: 'This is not a lesson I have ever been in a position to learn.
Alan Bennett
Image
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.
Alan Bennett
Image
We were put to Dickens as children but it never quite took. That unremitting humanity soon had me cheesed off.
Alan Bennett
Image
I can walk. It's just that I'm so rich I don't need to.
Alan Bennett
Image
The longer I practise medicine, the more convinced I am there are only two types of cases: those that involve taking the trousers off and those that don't.
Alan Bennett
Image
No mention of God. They keep Him up their sleeves for as long as they can, vicars do. They know it puts people off.
Alan Bennett
Image
Authors, she soon decided, were probably best met within the pages of their novels, and were as much creatures of the reader's imagination as the characters in their books. 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
Image
To read is to withdraw.To make oneself unavailable. One would feel easier about it if the pursuit inself were less...selfish.
Alan Bennett
Image
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.
Alan Bennett
Image
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.
Alan Bennett
Image
I dont know whether you've ever looked into a miner's eyes for any length of time, that is. Because it is the loveliest blue you've ever seen. 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
Image
Our father the novelist my husband the poet. He belongs to the ages - just don't catch him at breakfast. Artists, celebrated for their humanity, they turn out to be scarcely human at all.
Alan Bennett