Anita Brookner Quotes

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.

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.

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

Accountability in friendship is the equivalent of love without strategy.

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.

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

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

Great writers are the saints for the godless.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.