Alan Bennett Quotes

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

  Alan Bennett

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

  Alan Bennett

• We were put to Dickens as children but it never quite took. That unremitting humanity soon had me cheesed off.

  Alan Bennett

• My films are about embarrassment.

  Alan Bennett

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

  Alan Bennett

• Life is generally something that happens elsewhere.

  Alan Bennett

• If you think squash is a competitive activity, try flower arranging.

  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

• I’m all in favour of free expression provided it’s kept rigidly under control.

  Alan Bennett

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

  Alan Bennett

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

  Alan Bennett

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

  Alan Bennett

• Cancer, like any other illness, is a bore.

  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

  Topics in Advice

• Life is rather like a tin of sardines – we’re all of us looking for the key.

  Alan Bennett

  Topics in Confusion, Life

Alan Bennett (35)

Birth:	9th May, 1934
Nationality:	British
Profession:	Actor, Author, Playwriter, Screenwriter

About

Alan Bennett is a British playwright, screenwriter, actor and author. Born in Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire, he attended Oxford University where he studied history and performed with The Oxford Revue. He stayed to teach and research medieval history at the university for several years. His collaboration as writer and performer with Dudley Moore, Jonathan Miller and Peter Cook in the satirical revue Beyond the Fringe at the 1960 Edinburgh Festival brought him instant fame. He gave up academia, and turned to writing full-time, his first stage play Forty Years On being produced in 1968. His output includes The Madness of George III and its film incarnation The Madness of King George, the series of monologues Talking Heads, the play The History Boys, and popular audio books, including his readings of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Winnie-the-Pooh.

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Births

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Deaths

• 1917 - William De Morgan
• 2011 - Susannah York
• 1982 - Red Smith
• 1896 - Mathew B. Brady
• 1983 - Meyer Lansky