Quotes from Alan Bennett

but that apart he entirely talks about me- where do I live now, what am I reading, have I got a new play on but in that kind of half-attentive way politicians have, asking questions but scarcely listening to the answers- royalty, I imagine similarly.

Audiences shouldn't be homogenous before one even starts; it's the performance, even of a reading, that should weld them into a unit.

Solo quello che vedi con la coda dell'occhio ti tocca nel profondo. (E.M. Forster)

What Oxford gave me was time,,,I was supervised by someone whose passion for the subject, his care for his pupils and his moral rigour I have never forgotten and whose example has stayed with me all my life.

I think the need for reading boils down to one simple issue: children are selfish. Reading about other people creates a sense of balance in a child's life. It gives them the knowledge that there is a world outside themselves. It tells them that the language they are learning at home is the key to unlocking the mysteries of the greater world.

there are a few houses on the street left in their original trim, today's newcomers seldom moving in until they have ripped the guts out of these decent Victorian villas to turn them into models of white and modish minimalism.

Ma qualcuno l'avrà pure ragguagliata, Maestà?. Certamente, disse la regina ma ragguagliare non è leggere. Anzi, è l'esatto contrario. Il ragguaglio è succinto, concreto e pertinente. La lettura è disordinata, dispersiva e sempre invitante. Il ragguaglio esaurisce la questione, la lettura la apre.

Cambridge... the place bowled me over. Leeds, where I had been born and brought up... but though I was not blind to its architectural splendours... I was famished for antiquity. I had never been in a place of such continuous and unfolding beauty as Cambridge and, December 1951 being exceptionally cold, the Cam was frozen and a thick hoarfrost covered every court and quadrangle giving the whole city an unreal and celestial beauty. And it was empty, as provincial places in those days were.

On cherche dans un livre la confirmation de ses propres convictions.

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, Im not surprised. It was a beautiful overcoat.

where the author has no ordained place or prescribed function and with nothing useful to do except gossip and make myself amiable; I succumb all too readily to the lure of conviviality and sociability's powerful drug and just sit around and watch.

L'attrattiva della letteratura, rifletté, consisteva nella sua indifferenza, nella sua totale mancanza di deferenza. I libri se ne infischiavano di chi li leggeva; se nessuno li apriva, loro stavano bene lo stesso. Un lettore valeva l'altro e lei non faceva eccezione.

Larkin says that they fuck you up, your mum and dad. And if you end up writing, then that's fine because if they have, then you've got something to write about. But if they haven't fucked you up, you don't have anything to write about, so then they've fucked you up good and proper.

Esplodere? disse la regina. Ma era Anita Brookner!. Il giovane, decisamente poco ossequioso, disse che magari la sicurezza l'aveva scambiato per un ordigno. E la regina: Ma certamente. Perché lo è. Un libro è un ordigno per infiammare l'immaginazione.

The names Americans visit on their children never ceases to amaze me. One of Diana Ross' daughters labours under the name of Chudney.

Leggere vuol dire sottrarsi. Rendersi irreperibili. Sarebbe già diverso» disse Sir Kevin «se come passatempo fosse meno… egoistico». «Egoistico?». «Forse dovrei dire solipsistico». «E allora lo dica». Al che Sir Kevin si lanciò. «Se potessimo veicolare le sue letture per uno scopo più ampio: acculturare il paese, ad esempio, per promuovere la lettura fra i giovani.

Authors, she soon decided, were probably best met within the pages of their novels, and as much creatures of the readers imagination as the characters in their books.

16 December. In his book The Poetics of Space (1958) the critic and philosopher Gaston Bachelard quotes the advice of a dictionary of botany: 'Reader, study the periwinkle in detail, and you will see how detail increases an object's stature.' 'To use a magnifying glass', Bachelard comments a little later, 'is to pay attention.' (From The Man with a Blue Scarf by Martin Gayford.)

Non si mette la vita nei libri. La si trova.

Books are wonderful, aren't they? … At the risk of sounding like a piece of steak, they tenderize one. … he concurred again, but had no notion what she was on about.

Forse, disse a Norman, leggo perché sento di dover indagare la natura degli esseri umani.

Sulking in children and the periodic cabinet member.

If reading softens one up, writing does the reverse. You have to be tough, do you not?

In the old days he would have taken to the block. Now he was taken to New Zealand and given the role of high commissioner. It was the block, but it took longer.