Quotes from book
The Uncommon Reader

Name: The Uncommon Reader
Author: Alan Bennett

The Uncommon Reader is a novella by Alan Bennett. After appearing first in the London Review of Books, Vol. 29, No. 5 , it was published later the same year in book form by Faber & Faber and Profile Books.

“[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 book The Uncommon Reader

Source: The Uncommon Reader

“You don't put your life into your books, you find it there.”

Alan Bennett book The Uncommon Reader

Source: The Uncommon Reader

“It was the kind of library
he had only read about in books.”

Alan Bennett book The Uncommon Reader

Source: The Uncommon Reader

“One reads for pleasure… it is not a public duty.”

Alan Bennett book The Uncommon Reader

Source: The Uncommon Reader

“Books are not about passing time. They're about other lives. Other worlds. Far from wanting time to pass, one just wishes one had more of it. If one wanted to pass the time one could go to New Zealand.”

Alan Bennett book The Uncommon Reader

Source: The Uncommon Reader

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

Alan Bennett book The Uncommon Reader

Source: The Uncommon Reader

“A book is a device to ignite the imagination.”

Alan Bennett book The Uncommon Reader

Source: The Uncommon Reader

“… 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.”

Alan Bennett book The Uncommon Reader

Source: The Uncommon Reader

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

Alan Bennett book The Uncommon Reader

Source: The Uncommon Reader

“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 The Uncommon Reader

Source: The Uncommon Reader

“… 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 book The Uncommon Reader

Source: The Uncommon Reader

“To read is to withdraw. To make oneself unavailable. One would feel easier about it if the pursuit inself were less… selfish.”

Alan Bennett book The Uncommon Reader

Source: The Uncommon Reader

“Reading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting.”

Alan Bennett book The Uncommon Reader

Source: The Uncommon Reader

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