Standards are always out of date. That's what makes them standards.
Interpretation
Standards become obsolete over time as society evolves, which is what defines them as 'standards'.
This quote by Alan Bennett emphasizes that standards are not static; they reflect the norms and expectations of a particular time, and as society changes, so too must these standards. The acknowledgment that standards become outdated is a call to recognize that progress and growth require the willingness to adapt and re-evaluate what we consider to be the 'norm'.
In practice
In a speech about innovation in technology, one might refer to the quote to highlight the need for evolving standards.
To begin with, it's true, she read with trepidation and some unease. The sheer endlessness of books outfaced her and she had no idea how to go on; there was no system to her reading, with one book leading to another, and often she had two or three on the go at the same time.
A book is a device to ignite the imagination.
Those who have known the famous are publicly debriefed of their memories, knowing as their own dusk falls that they will only be remembered for remembering someone else.
To read is to withdraw.To make oneself unavailable. One would feel easier about it if the pursuit inself were less...selfish.
The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - which you had thought special and particular to you. And now, here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out, and taken yours
...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.
Self is the only oil that makes the chariot-wheels of the hypocrite move in all religious concerns.
Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.
What do I make of all this texture? What does it mean about the kind of world in which I have been set down? The texture of the world, its filigree and scrollwork, means that there is the possibility for beauty here, a beauty inexhaustible in its complexity, which opens to my knock, which answers in me a call I do not remember calling, and which trains me to the wild and extravagant nature of the spirit I seek.
I've always been fascinated with the stealing of innocence. It's the most heinous crime, and certainly a capital crime if there ever was one.
You see, one thing is, I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things... It doesn't frighten me.
The complexity of the connection between the world of perception and the world of physics does not preclude that such a connection can be shown to exist at any time.
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