Anita Brookner Quotes (29 Quotes)

You never know what you will learn till you start writing. Then you discover truths you never knew existed.

It is my contention that Aesop was writing for the tortoise market. hares have no time to read.

Dr Weiss, at forty, knew that her life had been ruined by literature.

No blame should attach to telling the truth. But it does, it does.

Time misspent in youth is sometimes all the freedom one ever has.

Accountability in friendship is the equivalent of love without strategy.

Real love is a pilgrimage. It happens when there is no strategy, but it is very rare because most people are strategists.

Old men should have more care to end life well than to live long.

Writing novels preserves you in a state of innocence - a lot passes you by - simply because your attention is otherwise diverted.

Existentialism is about being a saint without God; being your own hero, without all the sanction and support of religion or society.

There are moments when you feel free, moments when you have energy, moments when you have hope, but you can't rely on any of these things to see you through. Circumstances do that.

I was brought up among the sort of self-important women who had a husband as one has an alibi

Great writers are the saints for the godless.

The essence of romantic love is that wonderful beginning, after which sadness and impossibility may become the rule.

Life... is not simply a series of exciting new ventures. The future is not always a whole new ball game. There tends to be unfinished business. One trails all sorts of things around with one, things that simply won't be got rid of.

You have no idea how promising the world begins to look once you have decided to have it all for yourself. And how much healthier your decisions are once they become entirely selfish.

The lessons taught in great books are misleading. The commerce in life is rarely so simple and never so just.

You can never betray the people who are dead, so you go on being a public Jew; the dead can't answer slurs, but I'm here. I would love to think that Jesus wants me for a sunbeam, but he doesn't.

All good fortune is a gift of the gods, and you don't win the favor of the ancient gods by being good, but by being bold.

In real life, it is the hare who wins. Every time. Look around you. And in any case it is my contention that Aesop was writing for the tortoise market. Hares have no time to read. They are too busy winning the game.

A complete woman is probably not a very admirable creature. She is manipulative, uses other people to get her own way, and works within whatever system she is in.

Romanticism is not just a mode it literally eats into every life. Women will never get rid of just waiting for the right man.

A man can go from being a lover to being a stranger in three moves flat ... but a woman under the guise of friendship will engage in acts of duplicity which come to light very much later. There are different species of self-justification.

Like many rich men, he thought in anecdotes; like many simple women, she thought in terms of biography.

In real life, of course, it is the hare that wins. Every time. Look around you.

A man of such obvious and exemplary charm must be a liar.

Good women always think it is their fault when someone else is being offensive. Bad women never take the blame for anything.

It will be a pity if women in the more conventional mould are to be phased out, for there will never be anyone to go home to.

What is interesting about self-analysis is that it leads nowhere - it is an art form in itself.