“I know what’s required. It’s perfectly simple: Justice.”
― Alan Bennett, quote from The Lady In The Van
“Good nature, or what is often considered as such, is the most selfish of all virtues: it is nine times out of ten mere indolence of disposition. William Hazlitt, ‘On the Knowledge of Character’ (1822)”
― Alan Bennett, quote from The Lady In The Van
“One seldom was able to do her a good turn without some thoughts of strangulation.”
― Alan Bennett, quote from The Lady In The Van
“Miss S. bevorzugte das pathetische Wort ‚land’ gegenüber dem üblichen ‚country’. ‚This land …’ In diesem Sinne gebraucht, ist es zwar nicht direkt die Sprache des Wahnsinns, aber doch der Besessenheit. Zeugen Jehovas sprechen ständig von ‚this land’, ebenso die National Front. Land ist gleich country plus Vorsehung – ein Land im Angesicht Gottes. Auch Mrs. Thatcher sagt ‚this land’.”
― Alan Bennett, quote from The Lady In The Van
“May 1976. I have had some manure delivered for the garden and, since the manure heap is not far from the van, Miss S. is concerned that people passing might think the smell is coming from there. She wants me to put a notice on the gate to the effect that the smell is the manure, not her. I say no, without adding, as I could, that the manure actually smells much nicer.
I am working in the garden when Miss B., the social worker, comes with a boxful of clothes.
Miss S. is reluctant to open the van door, as she is listening to 'Any Answers', but eventually she slides on her bottom to the door of the van and examines the clothes. She is unimpressed.
MISS S.: I only asked for one coat.
MISS B.: Well, I brought three just in case you wanted a change.
MISS S.: I haven't got room for three. Besides, I was planning to wash this coat in the near future. That makes four.
MISS B.: This is my old nursing mac.
MISS S.: I have a mac. Besides, green doesn't suit me. Have you got the stick?
MISS B.: No. That's being sent down. It made to be made specially.
MISS S.: Will it be long enough?
MISS B.: Yes. It's a special stick.
MISS S.: I don't want a special stick. I want an ordinary stick. Does it have a rubber thing on?”
― Alan Bennett, quote from The Lady In The Van
Alan Bennett
Born place: in Leeds, Yorkshire, The United Kingdom
Born date May 9, 1934
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“The sound of the pages turning was the sound of magic. The dry liquid feel of paper under fingertips was what magic felt like.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins
“Once more I struck out into the ocean of space, heading for another near star. Once more I was disappointed.”
― Olaf Stapledon, quote from Star Maker
“Just because you don't know everything don't mean you know nothing.”
― Karen Cushman, quote from The Midwife's Apprentice
“She was not a slowpoke grownup. She was a girl who could not wait. Life was so interesting she had to find out what happened next.”
― Beverly Cleary, quote from Ramona the Pest
“Still, he could feel a fine cord stretched between them, a thin luminous fiber that ran from his chest all the way across the continent and forked into theirs. Never before had he lived through a fever without his mother; when he’d been sick in Debrecen she’d taken the train to be with him. Never had he finished a year at school without knowing that soon he’d be home with his father, working beside him in the lumberyard and walking through the fields with him in the evening. Now there was another filament, one that linked him to Klara. And Paris was her home, this place thousands of kilometers from his own. He felt the stirring of a new ache, something like homesickness but located deeper in his mind; it was an ache for the tie when his heart had been a simple and satisfied thing, small as the green apples that grew in his father’s orchard.”
― Julie Orringer, quote from The Invisible Bridge
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