Quotessence
Home / Authors / Alan Bennett Biography
Alan Bennett

Alan Bennett Biography

Playwright

Related Quotes

“20 March - All the Leeds trains have been cancelled and I am wandering the station not knowing what to do when Rupert discovers me, having managed to get on to a Scottish train and change at Doncaster. Greatly elated by this we have a supper at La Grilla (halibut and chips) and then drive homeward in good spirits. Except that just after the Addingham bypass R. cries out and I see a grey shape in the headlights and he hits a badger - a young one, I would have thought and which, with its striped nose now lies senseless by the kerb. We drive back round the roundabout and then up the road again - and for one exultant moment it seems to have picked itself up and gone, but there it is, lying like an old rug by the roadside. We discuss running it over again to make sure it is dead - but neither of us can face it. R. is devastated; it's like Vronsky breaking his horse's back - a moment he can never call back - and feeling himself guilty and polluted by everything he hates - heedless cars, thoughtless motorists with him now one of their number. What particularly upsets him is that I have never seen a live badger - all the badgers I have seen like this one is now, a dirty corpse by the roadside. We drive on in sadness and silence.”

Badger
Book:Keeping On Keeping On
Create image

“„Leggere vuol dire sottrarsi. Rendersi irreperibili. Sarebbe già diverso» disse Sir Kevin «se come passatempo fosse meno… egoistico». «Egoistico?». «Forse dovrei dire solipsistico». «E allora lo dica». Al che Sir Kevin si lanciò. «Se potessimo veicolare le sue letture per uno scopo più ampio: acculturare il paese, ad esempio, per promuovere la lettura fra i giovani.”

LeggereLetturaPassioneLa Sovrana LettriceRegina D Inghilterra
Book:The Uncommon Reader
Create image

“L’attrattiva della letteratura, rifletté, consisteva nella sua indifferenza, nella sua totale mancanza di deferenza. I libri se ne infischiavano di chi li leggeva; se nessuno li apriva, loro stavano bene lo stesso. Un lettore valeva l’altro e lei non faceva eccezione. La letteratura, pensò, è un commonwealth; le lettere sono una repubblica. In realtà quell’espressione, la repubblica delle lettere, l’aveva già sentita nei discorsi dei rettori, alle lauree ad honorem e simili, senza aver mai capito bene cosa significasse. All’epoca aveva ritenuto leggermente offensivo qualsiasi riferimento a una qualunque repubblica; se poi il riferimento avveniva in sua presenza, come minimo lo considerava una mancanza di tatto. Solo adesso afferrava il senso di quell’espressione. I libri non sono per nulla ossequiosi. Tutti i lettori sono uguali, e questo le risvegliò un ricordo di quand’era bambina.”

LeggerePassione Per La LetturaLa Sovrana Lettrice
Author:Alan Bennett
Create image

“And it occurred to her that reading was, among other things, a muscle and one that she had seemingly developed. She could read the novel with ease and great pleasure, laughing at remarks, they were hardly jokes, that she had not even noticed before.”

Reading BooksReading QuotesLove Of ReadingReading HabitsReading For LifeReading MotivationBook LoveReading SecretsWisdom Of WinnersLoving BooksReading DevelopmentReading LoveReading MuscleThe Uncommon Reader
Book:The Uncommon Reader
Create image

“May 1976. I have had some manure delivered for the garden and, since the manure heap is not far from the van, Miss S. is concerned that people passing might think the smell is coming from there. She wants me to put a notice on the gate to the effect that the smell is the manure, not her. I say no, without adding, as I could, that the manure actually smells much nicer. I am working in the garden when Miss B., the social worker, comes with a boxful of clothes. Miss S. is reluctant to open the van door, as she is listening to 'Any Answers', but eventually she slides on her bottom to the door of the van and examines the clothes. She is unimpressed. MISS S.: I only asked for one coat. MISS B.: Well, I brought three just in case you wanted a change. MISS S.: I haven't got room for three. Besides, I was planning to wash this coat in the near future. That makes four. MISS B.: This is my old nursing mac. MISS S.: I have a mac. Besides, green doesn't suit me. Have you got the stick? MISS B.: No. That's being sent down. It made to be made specially. MISS S.: Will it be long enough? MISS B.: Yes. It's a special stick. MISS S.: I don't want a special stick. I want an ordinary stick. Does it have a rubber thing on?”

ClothesSocial WorkerVan
Book:The Lady in the Van
Create image

“Today's ideology masquerades as pragmatism with that pragmatism reduced to the simplistic assumption that the basis of human nature is self-interest, a view which discount philanthropy, discredits altruism, with the only motive deserving of trust self-promotion and self-advancement. This so-called pragmatism is wicked and it is doubly so because it is held up as being both realistic and a virtue. Whereas it is shallow, shabby and all too often callous.”

GreedSelf InterestPrivatisation
Book:Keeping On Keeping On
Create 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.”

HumansAgeArtistHumanityTurnsFatherPoetHusbandNovelistsMy HusbandBreakfastOur Father
Book:Alan Bennett Plays 2: Kafka's Dick; Insurance Man; Old Country; Englishman Abroad; Question of Attribution
Create image

“I tried to explain to her the significance of the great poet, but without much success, The Waste Land not figuring very largely in Mam's scheme of things. "The thing is," I said finally, "he won the Nobel Prize." "Well," she said, with that unerring grasp of inessentials which is the prerogative of mothers, "I'm not surprised. It was a beautiful overcoat."”

WellsSaidBeautifulMotherLandPoetWastePrizeSignificanceSchemesNobelNobel PrizeGreat PoetPrerogativeWaste LandOvercoat
Author:Alan Bennett
Create image

“We have fish and chips, which W. and I fetch from the shop in Settle market-place. Some local boys come in and there is a bit of chat between them and the fish-fryer about whether the kestrel under the counter is for sale. Only when I mention it to W. does he explain Kestrel is now a lager. I imagine the future is going to contain an increasing number of incidents like this, culminating with a man in a white coat saying to one kindly, "And now can you tell me the name of the Prime Minister?"”

MenDoeNamesBitsWhiteNumbersBoysImagineFishesLocalsMinistersSettlingShopsPrimeCoatsPrime MinisterChipsIncidentsFetchFish And ChipsLagerWhite Coat
Author:Alan Bennett
Create image

“Remember. You are a physician. You are not a policeman nor are you a minister of religion. You must take people as they come. Remember, too that though you will generally know more about the condition than the patient, it is the patient who has the condition and this if nothing else bestows on him or her a kind of wisdom. You have the knowledge but that does not entitle you to be superior. Knowledge makes you the servant not the master.”

PeopleIfsKnowsKindDoeRememberConditionsMastersPatientSuperiorsMinistersServantPhysiciansPolicemenRemember YouRemembers You
Book:Smut: Two Unseemly Stories
Create image

“My experience came before most of you were born. My school was a state school in Leeds and the headmaster usually sent students to Leeds University but he didn't normally send them to Oxford or Cambridge. But the headmaster happened to have been to Cambridge and decided to try and push some of us towards Oxford and Cambridge. So, half a dozen of us tried - not all of us in history - and we all eventually got in. So, to that extent, it [The History Boys] comes out of my own experience.”

TryingHas BeensStatesSchoolBornMy OwnHalfBoysHappenedStudentsDecidedUniversityDozenOxfordCambridgeLeedsHeadmasters
Author:Alan Bennett
Create image

“I had no idea of who could play it, no notion really. Then Richard came to see us but I don't think it was decided at that meeting. The trouble is, as soon as you've chosen somebody it obscures anybody else you might have thought of. It's like going to a place that you've never been to before - you've got a picture of it and then you go there and that picture is totally wiped out by the reality.”

ThinkingIdeasPlayRealityMightTroubleDecidedMeetingsNotionChosenNo Idea
Author:Alan Bennett
Create image