233 Quotes by Alan Bennett

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.

That's a bit like asking a man crawling across the Sahara whether he would prefer Perrier or Malvern water.

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

Memories are not shackles, Franklin, they are garlands.

History is a commentary on the various and continuing incapabilities of men. What is history? History is women following behind with the bucket.

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.

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'.

Mark my words, when a society has to resort to the lavatory for its humour, the writing is on the wall.

The longer I practise medicine, the more convinced I am there are only two types of cases: those that involve taking the trousers off and those that don't.