Alan Bennett

"We have fish and chips, which W. and I fetch from the shop in Settle market-place. Some local boys come in and there is a bit of chat between them and the fish-fryer about whether the kestrel under th…"

"Polly: Question is whether you hate the coach party because they're like the dogs or hate the dogs because they're like the coach party."

"Schweitzer in the Congo did not derive more moral credit than Larkin did for living in Hull."

"Writer: What, above all, I'm primarily concerned with is the substance of life, the pith of reality. If I had to sum up my work, that's it, really. I'm taking the pith out of reality."

"The majority of people perform well in a crisis and when the spotlight is on them; it's on the Sunday afternoons of this life, when nobody is looking, that the spirit falters."

"If you find yourself born in Barnsley and then set your sights on being Virginia Woolf it is not going to be roses all the way."

"To play Trivial Pursuit with a life like mine could be said to be a form of homeopathy."

"Geoff: We started off trying to set up a small anarchist community, but people wouldn't obey the rules."