Quotes from 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.

No mention of God. They keep Him up their sleeves for as long as they can, vicars do. They know it puts people off.

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

You always know when you're going to arrive. If you go by car, you don't. Apart from anything else, I prefer cycling. It puts you in a good mood, I find.

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

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

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

I don't want to see libraries close; I want to find local solutions that will make them sustainable.

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

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.

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

Life is rather like a tin of sardines - we're all of us looking for the key.

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.

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

Can there be any greater pleasure than to come across an author one enjoys and then to find they have written not just one book or two, but at least a dozen?

I think of literature,' she wrote, 'as a vast country to the far borders of which I am journeying but will never reach. And I have started to late. I will never catch up.

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

I don't always understand poetry!' 'You don't always understand it? Timms, I never understand it. But learn it now, know it now and you will understand it...whenever.

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

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.

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.

Life is rather like a tin of sardines - we're all of us looking for the key.

The transmission of knowledge is in itself an erotic act.

I would have thought, said the prime minister, that Your Majesty was above literature. Above literature? said the Queen. Who is above literature? You might as well say one is above humanity.