Have You Ever Thought, Headmaster, That Your

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.

I'm Not Good At Precise, Coherent Argument. But Plays Are Suited To Incoherent Argument, Put Into The Mouths Of Fallible People.

There's Very Little In The Substance Of [the Lady In The Van] Which Is Not Fact Though Some Adjustments Have Had To Be Made. Over The Years Miss Shepherd Was Visited By A Succession Of Social Workers So The Character In The Play Is A Composite Figure. . . . A Composite Too Are The Neighbours, Pauline And Rufus, Though I Have Made Rufus A Publisher In Remembrance Of My Neighbour, The Late Colin Haycraft, The Proprietor Of Duckworth's.

Deluded Liberal That I Am, I Persist In Thinking That Those With A Streak Of Sexual Unorthodoxy Ought To Be More Tolerant Of Their Fellows Than Those Who Lead An Entirely Godly, Righteous And Sober Life. Illogically, I Tend To Assume That If You ( Philip Larkin) Dream Of Caning Schoolgirls Bottoms, It Disqualifies You From Dismissing Half The Nation As Work-shy.

[talking About The Holocaust] 'but To Put Something In Context Is A Step Towards Saying It Can Be Understood And That It Can Be Explained. And If It Can Be Explained That It Can Be Explained Away.' 'but This Is History. Distance Yourselves. Our Perspective On The Past Alters. Looking Back, Immediately In Front Of Us Is Dead Ground. We Don't See It, And Because We Don't See It This Means That There Is No Period So Remote As The Recent Past. And One Of The Historian's Jobs Is To Anticipate What Our Perspective Of That Period Will Be... Even On The Holocaust.