Quotes by Alan Bennett

“This symposium will highlight the surprisingly diverse and positive role that cocoa can potentially play in improving public health and reinvigorating endangered tropical ecosystems. It also underscores the impact that collaborative efforts among public and private sector scientists can have in a relatively short time.”

“Thats a great benefit. After we chose the cast, we educated them into the play. We taught them. One of the blessings of being at the National Theatre is that you have a very long rehearsal time.”

“Hes so eccentric -- physically, and hes so funny.”

“I write plays about things that I cant resolve in my mind. I try to root things out.”

“Ive never seen the point of the sea, except where it meets the land. The shore has a point. The sea has none.”

“Were we closer to the ground as children, or is the grass emptier now?”

“Your whole life is on the other side of the glass. And there is nobody watching.”

“We started off trying to set up a small anarchist community, but people wouldnt obey the rules.”

You dont put your life into your books, you find it there.

We started off trying to set up a small anarchist community, but people wouldnt obey the rules.

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.

Im not happy but Im not unhappy about it.

Too late. It was all too late. But she went on, determined as ever and always trying to catch up.

A book is a device to ignite the imagination.

[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.

...to her all books were the same and, as with her subjects, she felt a duty to approach them without prejudice...Lauren Bacall, Winifred Holtby, Sylvia Plath - who were they? Only be reading could she find out.

The days werent long enough for the reading she wanted to do.

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. 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.

What she was finding also was how one book led to another, doors kept opening wherever she turned and the days werent long enough for the reading she wanted to do.

Books are not about passing time. Theyre 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.