F They'd Been Working With Alec Guinness,

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.

[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.

Never Read The Bible As If It Means Something. Or At Any Rate Don't Try And Mean It. Nor Prayers. The Liturgy Is Best Treated And Read As If It's Someone Announcing The Departure Of Trains.

I Saw Someone Peeing In Jermym Street The Other Day. I Thought, Is This The End Of Civilization As We Know It? Or Is It Simply Someone Peeing In Jermyn Street?

Have You Ever Thought, Headmaster, That Your Standards Might Perhaps Be A Little Out Of Date? Of Course They're Out Of Date. Standards Are Always Out Of Date. That Is What Makes Them Standards.