To play Trivial Pursuit with a life like mine could be said to be... by Alan Bennett

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

Alan Bennett

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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.

virginia sight rose

Standards are always out of date. That's what makes them standar... by Alan Bennett

Standards are always out of date.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

standards computer

So boring you fall asleep halfway through her name. by Alan Bennett

So boring you fall asleep halfway through her name.

sarcastic names fall

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.

trying teacher boys

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 our fault because so many of our people died. A photograph on every mantlepiece. And all this mourning has veiled the truth. It's not so much lest we forget, as lest we remember. Because you should realise the Cenotaph and the Last Post and all that stuff is concerned, there's no better way of forgetting something than by commemorating it.

mourning war people

Nature played a cruel trick on her by giving her a waxed mustache... by Alan Bennett

Nature played a cruel trick on her by giving her a waxed mustache.

mustache sarcastic giving

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.

space science mean

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.

reading kindness book

Cloisters, ancient libraries ... I was confusing learning with th... by Alan Bennett

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

library smell confusing

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

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

library kind book

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.

reading book ideas

Your whole life is on the other side of the glass. And there is n... by Alan Bennett

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

glasses sides life

God doesn't do notes, either. Did Jesus Christ say, "Can I be exc... by Alan Bennett

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

notes jesus christ

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.

lessons recipes stars

...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.

reading impossible writing

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

ocean land sea

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.

effort found goes-on

[talking about the Holocaust] 'But to put something in context is a step towards saying it can be understood and that it can be explained. And if it can be explained that it can be explained away.' 'But this is History. Distance yourselves. Our perspective on the past alters. Looking back, immediately in front of us is dead ground. We don't see it, and because we don't see it this means that there is no period so remote as the recent past. And one of the historian's jobs is to anticipate what our perspective of that period will be... even on the Holocaust.

distance jobs mean

My films are about embarrassment. by Alan Bennett

My films are about embarrassment.

embarrassment film

I write plays about things that I can't resolve in my mind. I try... by Alan Bennett

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

roots play writing