The appeal of reading, she thought, lay in its indifference: there was something undeferring about literature. Books did not care who was… — Alan Bennett Copy Share Image
But then books, as I'm sure you know, seldom prompt a course of action. Books generally just confirm you in what you… — Alan Bennett Copy Share 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 Copy Share Image
“The appeal of reading, she thought, lay in its indifference: there was something undeferring about literature. Books did not care who was… — Alan Bennett Copy Share Image
What she was finding also was how one book led to another, doors kept opening wherever she turned and the days weren't… — Alan Bennett Copy Share Image
“When they arrived at the palace she had a word with Grant, the young footman in charge, who said it was security… — Alan Bennett Copy Share Image
“I think of literature,' she wrote, 'as a vast country to the far borders of which I am journeying but will never… — Alan Bennett Copy Share Image
“Archbishop. Why do I never read the lesson?” “I beg your pardon, ma’am?” “In church. Everybody else gets to read and one… — Alan Bennett Copy Share Image
Definition of a classic: a book everyone is assumed to have read and often thinks they have. — Alan Bennett Copy Share Image
The Breed never dies. Sapper, Buchan, Dornford Yates, practitioners in that school of Snobbery withViolence that runs like a thread of good-class… — Alan Bennett Copy Share Image
I always like to break out and address the audience. In 'The History Boys', for instance, without any ado, the boys will… — Alan Bennett Copy Share Image
Authors, she soon decided, were probably best met within the pages of their novels, and were as much creatures of the reader's… — Alan Bennett Copy Share Image
Books are not about passing the time. They're about other lives. Other worlds. — Alan Bennett Copy Share Image
“A library in the middle of a community is a cross between an emergency exit, a life raft and a festival. They… — Alan Bennett Copy Share Image
“I would have thought," said the prime minister, "that Your Majesty was above literature." "Above literature?" said the Queen. "Who is above… — Alan Bennett Copy Share Image
“...to her all books were the same and, as with her subjects, she felt a duty to approach them without prejudice...Lauren Bacall,… — Alan Bennett Copy Share Image
“Can there be any greater pleasure than to come across an author one enjoys and then to find they have written not… — Alan Bennett Copy Share Image
“What people want to read often seems incongruous. A pair of biker-types taking away Thoughts of the Dalai Lama. People without access… — Alan Bennett Copy Share Image
To begin with, it's true, she read with trepidation and some unease. The sheer endlessness of books outfaced her and she had… — Alan Bennett Copy Share Image
“Books are not about passing the time. They’re about other lives. Other worlds. Far from wanting time to pass, Sir Kevin, one… — Alan Bennett Copy Share Image
Books are not about passing time. They're about other lives. Other worlds. Far from wanting time to pass, one just wishes one… — Alan Bennett Copy Share Image
“Books and bookcases cropping up in stuff that I've written means that they have to be reproduced on stage or on film.… — Alan Bennett Copy Share Image
I'd somehow always thought of the classics of literature as something apart from me, something to do with academic life and not… — Alan Bennett Copy Share Image
An article on playwrights in the Daily Mail , listed according to Hard Left, Soft Left, Hard Right, Soft Right and Centre. I am… — Alan Bennett Copy Share Image
I'm not good at precise, coherent argument. But plays are suited to incoherent argument, put into the mouths of fallible people. — Alan Bennett Copy Share Image
The thing I think about is that once you've done it, you then start to think about what you're going to do next. It's… — Alan Bennett Copy Share Image
At the drabber moments of my life (swilling some excrement from the steps, for instance, or rooting with a bent coat-hanger down a blocked… — Alan Bennett Copy Share Image
There are more microbes per person than the entire population of the world. Imagine that. Per person. This means that if the time scale… — Alan Bennett Copy Share Image
I'm more socialist certainly than New Labour - I'm very old Labour, really. — Alan Bennett Copy Share Image
Why do we not care to acknowledge them? The cattle, the body count. We still don't like to admit the war was even partly… — Alan Bennett Copy Share Image
Were we closer to the ground as children, or is the grass emptier now? — Alan Bennett Copy Share Image
But most men regard their life as a poem that women threaten. They may not have two spondees to rub together but they still… — Alan Bennett Copy Share Image
“BURGESS How do you like Moscow? CORAL Loathe it, darling. I cannot understand what those Three Sisters were on about. It gives the play… — Alan Bennett Copy Share Image
The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - which… — Alan Bennett Copy Share Image
