99+ Alan Bennett Quotes On Education, World And Stewart Lee

Alan Bennett is an English playwright, screenwriter, actor and author. He is best known for his plays and films such as The Madness of George III, The History Boys and The Lady in the Van. Bennett's work often explores themes of British middle-class life, including the exploration of social class and British identity. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Alan Bennett on life, education, world.

Top 10 Alan Bennett Quotes

1. Sometimes there is no next time, no time-outs, no second chances. Sometimes it’s now or never.
2. Life is rather like a tin of sardines - we're all of us looking for the key.
3. History is a commentary on the various and continuing incapabilities of men. What is history? History is women following behind with the bucket.
4. A bookshelf is as particular to its owner as are his or her clothes; a personality is stamped on a library just as a shoe is shaped by the foot.
5. The majority of people perform well in a crisis and when the spotlight is on them; it's on the Sunday afternoons of this life, when nobody is looking, that the spirit falters.
6. Mark my words, when a society has to resort to the lavatory for its humour, the writing is on the wall.
7. The Breed never dies. Sapper, Buchan, Dornford Yates, practitioners in that school of Snobbery withViolence that runs like a thread of good-class tweed through twentieth-century literature.
8. A book is a device to ignite the imagination.
9. That's a bit like asking a man crawling across the Sahara whether he would prefer Perrier or Malvern water.
10. Reading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting.

Alan Bennett Short Quotes

• At eighty things do not occur; they recur.
• So boring you fall asleep halfway through her name.
• Memories are not shackles, Franklin, they are garlands.
• Cancer, like any other illness, is a bore.
• I'm all in favour of free expression provided it's kept rigidly under control.
• If I am doing nothing, I like to be doing nothing to some purpose. That is what leisure means.
• Schweitzer in the Congo did not derive more moral credit than Larkin did for living in Hull.
• Nature played a cruel trick on her by giving her a waxed mustache.
• My films are about embarrassment.
• Were we closer to the ground as children, or is the grass emptier now?

Alan Bennett Quotes About Life

Kafka could never have written as he did had he lived in a house. His writing is that of someone whose whole life was spent in apartments, with lifts, stairwells, muffled voices behind closed doors, and sounds through walls. Put him in a nice detached villa and he'd never have written a word. — Alan Bennett

But most men regard their life as a poem that women threaten. They may not have two spondees to rub together but they still want to pen their saga untrammelled by life-threatening activities like trailing round Sainsbury's, emptying the dishwasher or going to the nativity play. — Alan Bennett

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 sink) thoughts occur like 'I bet Tom Stoppard doesn't have to do this' or There is no doubt David Hare would have deputed this to an underling.' — Alan Bennett

Your whole life is on the other side of the glass. And there is nobody watching. — Alan Bennett

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

Life is like a box of sardines and we are all looking for the key. — Alan Bennett

You don't put your life into your books, you find it there. — Alan Bennett

Life is generally something that happens elsewhere. — Alan Bennett

...she felt about reading what some writers felt about writing: that it was impossible not to do it and that at this late stage of her life she had been chosen to read as others were chosen to write. — Alan Bennett

To play Trivial Pursuit with a life like mine could be said to be a form of homeopathy. — Alan Bennett

Alan Bennett Quotes About World

Books are not about passing time. They're 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. — Alan Bennett

Books are not about passing the time. They're about other lives. Other worlds. — Alan Bennett

There are more microbes per person than the entire population of the world. Imagine that. Per person. This means that if the time scale is diminished in proportion to that of space it would be quite possible for the whole story of Greece and Rome to be played out between farts. — Alan Bennett

Alan Bennett Quotes About Books

Definition of a classic: a book everyone is assumed to have read and often thinks they have. — Alan Bennett

... Once I start a book I finish it. That was the way one was brought up. Books, bread and butter, mashed potato - one finishes what's on one's plate. That's always been my philosophy. — Alan Bennett

I don't talk very well. With writing, you've time to get it right. Also I've found the more I talk the less I write, and if I didn't write no one would want me to talk anyway. — Alan Bennett

To begin with, it's true, she read with trepidation and some unease. The sheer endlessness of books outfaced her and she had no idea how to go on; there was no system to her reading, with one book leading to another, and often she had two or three on the go at the same time. — Alan Bennett

It was the kind of library he had only read about in books. — Alan Bennett

The appeal of reading, she thought, lay in its indifference: there was something undeferring about literature. Books did not care who was reading them or whether one read them or not. All readers were equal, herself included. Literature, she thought, is a commonwealth; letters a republic. — Alan Bennett

But then books, as I'm sure you know, seldom prompt a course of action. Books generally just confirm you in what you have, perhaps unwittingly, decided to do already. You go to a book to have your convictions corroborated. A book, as it were, closes the book. — Alan Bennett

What she was finding also was how one book led to another, doors kept opening wherever she turned and the days weren't long enough for the reading she wanted to do. — Alan Bennett

Alan Bennett Quotes About Parents

Children always assume the sexual lives of their parents come to a grinding halt at their conception. — Alan Bennett

The nearest my parents came to alcohol was at Holy Communion and they utterly overestimated its effects. However bad the weather, Dad never drove to church because Mam thought the sacrament might make him incapable on the return journey. — Alan Bennett

I was an only child. I lost both my parents. By the time I was twenty I was bald. I'm homosexual. In the way of circumstances and background to transcend I had everything an artist could possibly want. It was practically a blueprint. I was programmed to be a novelist or a playwright. But I'm not. — Alan Bennett

Alan Bennett Famous Quotes And Sayings

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

[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. — Alan Bennett

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

Art comes out of art; it begins with imitation, often in the form of parody, and it's in the process of imitating the voice of others that one comes to learn the sound of one's own. — Alan Bennett

I'm not good at precise, coherent argument. But plays are suited to incoherent argument, put into the mouths of fallible people. — Alan Bennett

f they'd been working with Alec Guinness, for instance, they wouldn't have known they were born if they'd not towed the line! — Alan Bennett

It seems to me the mark of a civilized society that certain privileges should be taken for granted such as education, health care and the safety to walk the streets. — Alan Bennett

Philip Larkin used to cheer himself up by looking in the mirror and saying the line from Rebecca, 'I am Mrs de Winter now! — 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

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

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

An article on playwrights in the Daily Mail , listed according to Hard Left, Soft Left, Hard Right, Soft Right and Centre. I am not listed. I should probably come under Soft Centre. — Alan Bennett

If you find yourself born in Barnsley and then set your sights on being Virginia Woolf it is not going to be roses all the way. — Alan Bennett

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

I suppose I'm the only person who remembers one of the most exciting of his ballets-it's the fruit of an unlikely collaboration between Nijinsky on the one hand and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle on the other. — Alan Bennett

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. — Alan Bennett

I've never forgotten that experience. But I had nobody at school that was either like Hector or Irwin. The masters had no idea what was expected of you in the scholarship exam, so you just had to busk it really. — Alan Bennett

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

I write plays about things that I can't resolve in my mind. I try to root things out. — Alan Bennett

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

I lack what the English call character, by which they mean the power to refrain. — Alan Bennett

God doesn't do notes, either. Did Jesus Christ say, "Can I be excused the Crucifixion?" No! — Alan Bennett

Cloisters, ancient libraries ... I was confusing learning with the smell of cold stone. — Alan Bennett

The days weren't long enough for the reading she wanted to do. — 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

It's the one species I wouldn't mind seeing vanish from the face of the earth. I wish they were like the White Rhinosix of them left in the Serengeti National Park, and all males. — Alan Bennett

There is no such thing as a good script, onlya good film, and I'm conscious that my scripts often read better than they play. — Alan Bennett

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. — Alan Bennett

Of course my standards are out of date! That's why they're called standards. — Alan Bennett

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

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." — Alan Bennett

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 much easier to follow something that's not been as successful as this. — 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

All the effort went into getting there and then I had nothing left. I thought I'd got somewhere, then I found I had to go on. — Alan Bennett

Above literature?' said the Queen. 'Who is above literature? You might as well say one was above humanity. — Alan Bennett

I've never seen the point of the sea, except where it meets the land. The shore has a point. The sea has none. — Alan Bennett

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

Standards are always out of date. That's what makes them standards. — 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

What I'm above all primarily concerned with is the substance of life, the pith of reality. If I had to sum up my work, I suppose that's it really: I'm taking the pith out of reality. — Alan Bennett

Have you ever thought, headmaster, that your standards might perhaps be a little out of date? Of course they're out of date. Standards are always out of date. That is what makes them standards. — Alan Bennett

I'm not "happy" but I'm not unhappy about it. — 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'm for the freedom of expression, given that it will be under strict control. — Alan Bennett

Clichés can be quite fun. That's how they got to be clichés. — Alan Bennett

One reads for pleasure...it is not a public duty. — Alan Bennett

Why is it always the "intelligent" people who are socialists? — Alan Bennett

Deluded liberal that I am, I persist in thinking that those with a streak of sexual unorthodoxy ought to be more tolerant of their fellows than those who lead an entirely godly, righteous and sober life. Illogically, I tend to assume that if you ( Philip Larkin) dream of caning schoolgirls bottoms, it disqualifies you from dismissing half the nation as work-shy. — Alan Bennett

I can walk. It's just that I'm so rich I don't need to. — Alan Bennett

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

If, for instance, we'd made the film after the show had been to Broadway, it would have been exactly the same film but we would have been assured that they would have understood it. We didn't have to do any alterations for Broadway. I was supposed to go a fortnight before it opened to alter anything that was necessary and there was nothing really. — Alan Bennett

Polly: Education with socialists, it's like sex, all right as long as you don't have to pay for it. — Alan Bennett

Had your forefathers, Wigglesworth, been as stupid as you are, the human race would never have succeeded in procreating itself. — Alan Bennett

There's very little in the substance of [THE LADY IN THE VAN] which is not fact though some adjustments have had to be made. Over the years Miss Shepherd was visited by a succession of social workers so the character in the play is a composite figure. . . . A composite too are the neighbours, Pauline and Rufus, though I have made Rufus a publisher in remembrance of my neighbour, the late Colin Haycraft, the proprietor of Duckworth's. — Alan Bennett

I saw someone peeing in Jermym Street the other day. I thought, is this the end of civilization as we know it? Or is it simply someone peeing in Jermyn Street? — Alan Bennett

Life Lessons by Alan Bennett

1. Alan Bennett teaches us to never give up on our dreams, no matter how difficult they may seem. He rose to success despite a difficult upbringing and lack of formal education, showing that hard work and dedication can lead to great things.
2. He also teaches us the importance of staying true to ourselves and our values. Despite immense success, he has remained humble and has never compromised his beliefs.
3. Finally, Bennett reminds us that humour and wit can be powerful tools for making difficult situations more bearable. He has used his humour to tackle complex issues in his plays, showing us that we can use laughter to cope with life's challenges.