“ Teachers need to feel they are trusted. They must be allowed some leeway to use their imagination; otherwise, teaching loses all sense of wonder and excitement. Alan Bennett
“ 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 f… Alan Bennett
“ They fuck you up, your mum and dad', and if you're planning on writing that's probably a good thing. But if you are planning on writing and they haven't fucked you up, well, you've got nothing to go o… Alan Bennett
“ Those who have known the famous are publicly debriefed of their memories, knowing as their own dusk falls that they will only be remembered for remembering someone else. Alan Bennett
“ I have never understood disliking for war. It panders to instincts already catered for within the scope of any respectable domestic establishment. Alan Bennett
“ I didn't even have a clear idea of why I wanted to go to Oxford - apart from the fact I had fallen in love with the architecture. It certainly wasn't out of some great sense of academic or intellectua… Alan Bennett
“ 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 ha… Alan Bennett
“ Archbishop. Why do I never read the lesson?” “I beg your pardon, ma’am?” “In church. Everybody else gets to read and one never does. It’s not laid down, is it? It’s not off-limits?” “Not that I’m awar… Alan Bennett
“ [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,… Alan Bennett
“ We started off trying to set up a small anarchist community, but people wouldn't obey the rules. Alan Bennett
“ Dakin: The more you read, though, the more you'll see that literature is actually about losers.Scripps: No.Dakin: It's consolation. All literature is consolation. Alan Bennett
“ I think of literature - she wrote - as a vast country to the far borders of which I am journeying but cannot possibly reach. And I have started too late. I will never catch up. Alan Bennett
“ I have to seem like a human being all the time, but I seldom have to be one. I have people to do that for me. Alan Bennett
“ One of the hardest things for boys to learn is that a teacher is human. One of the hardest things for a teacher to learn is not to try and tell them. Alan Bennett
“ It's subjunctive history. You know, the subjunctive? The mood used when something may or may not have happened. When it is imagined. Alan Bennett
“ To read is to withdraw.To make oneself unavailable. One would feel easier about it if the pursuit inself were less...selfish. Alan Bennett
