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Alan Bennett Quotes about Reading

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The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - which you had thought special and particular to you. And now, here it is, set down by someone else, a

The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - which you had thought special and particular to you. And now, here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out, and taken yours

Alan Bennett
Inspirational, Motivational, Reading
The History Boys, www.imdb.com. 2006.

What she was finding also was how one book led to another, doors kept opening wherever she turned and the days weren't long enough for the reading she wanted to do.

Alan Bennett
Book, Reading, Doors
Alan Bennett (2008). “The Uncommon Reader”, p.10, Faber & Faber

The appeal of reading, she thought, lay in its indifference: there was something undeferring about literature. Books did not care who was reading them or whether one read them or not. All readers were equal, herself included. Literature, she thought, is a commonwealth; letters a republic.

Alan Bennett
Reading, Book, Literature

Reading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting.

Alan Bennett
Reading, Briefing, Inviting
Alan Bennett (2008). “The Uncommon Reader”, p.10, Faber & Faber

Authors, she soon decided, were probably best met within the pages of their novels, and were as much creatures of the reader's imagination as the characters in their books. Nor did they seem to think one had done them a kindness by reading their writings. Rather they had done one the kindness by writing them.

Alan Bennett
Kindness, Reading, Book
Alan Bennett (2008). “The Uncommon Reader”, p.22, Faber & Faber

[B]riefing is not reading. In fact it is the antithesis of reading. Briefing is terse, factual and to the point. Reading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting. Briefing closes down a subject, reading opens it up.

Alan Bennett
Reading, Facts, Briefing

A book is a device to ignite the imagination.

Alan Bennett
Book, Reading, Imagination
Alan Bennett (2008). “The Uncommon Reader”, p.15, Faber & Faber

The days weren't long enough for the reading she wanted to do.

Alan Bennett
Reading, Long, Enough
Alan Bennett (2008). “The Uncommon Reader”, p.10, Faber & Faber

...she felt about reading what some writers felt about writing: that it was impossible not to do it and that at this late stage of her life she had been chosen to read as others were chosen to write.

Alan Bennett
Reading, Writing, Impossible
Alan Bennett (2008). “The Uncommon Reader”, p.20, Faber & Faber

To begin with, it's true, she read with trepidation and some unease. The sheer endlessness of books outfaced her and she had no idea how to go on; there was no system to her reading, with one book leading to another, and often she had two or three on the go at the same time.

Alan Bennett
Book, Reading, Ideas
Alan Bennett (2008). “The Uncommon Reader”, p.20, Faber & Faber

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