"I would have thought", said the prime minister, "that Your Majesty was above literature."

"Above literature?" said the Queen. "Who is above literature? You may as well say one was above humanity.”

Bennett,A. continues to charm: direct, irreverent, funny. Only time for snatches, but still...

"'Police killing was lawful' says inquest. What police killing isn't?'"

'The joy of being a mob, particularly these days, is that it's probably the first time the people on this estate have found common cause in anything'

'In England age wipes the slate clean. If you live to be ninety and can stille at a boiled egg they think you deserve the Nobel Prize.'

'I'm brushing my teeth...then a little school or class passes...Ethnically mized with Muslim women in headscarves in attendance, a couple of tired-looking teachers and young fathers too...A poor school by the look of it...But the simplicity of this little column , the tired goodness of it, reaffirms...what? A belief in common decency.'

I think that last line sums England up really. A European (or an academic) would have written: the project of inter-subjective mutual responsibility to 'the other'.

'Jesus loves everyone, except you, you cunt.'

There's nothing more boring than meeting someone who thinks books and Literature are the cheez...of course, except for meeting someone who thinks the opposite. 

Mir's syndrome...

The History of Silence [   ]

There's a book on everything nowadays; everything's tainted. The private lioves of nobodys, dissected with great care and attention to useless detail after detail. 

"Is there a history of silence in your family?" asks the copper/shrink/wife. 

Royalty: the ability to forget who one is? The giveaway line that reveals, finally, who you are?