God doesn't do notes, either. Did Jesus Christ say, "Can I be excused the Crucifixion?" No!

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

Clichés can be quite fun. That's how they got to be clichés.

Definition of a classic: a book everyone is assumed to have read and often thinks they have.

Of course my standards are out of date! That's why they're called standards.

Cancer, like any other illness, is a bore.

My experience came before most of you were born. My school was a state school in Leeds and the headmaster usually sent students to Leeds University but he didn't normally send them to Oxford or Cambridge. But the headmaster happened to have been to Cambridge and decided to try and push some of us towards Oxford and Cambridge. So, half a dozen of us tried - not all of us in history - and we all eventually got in. So, to that extent, it [The History Boys] comes out of my own experience.