Quote

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

Anita Brookner

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Anita Brookner
Age: 87 †
Born: 1928
Born: July 16
Died: 2016
Died: March 10
Art Historian
Novelist
University Teacher
Writer
London
England
Innocence
Otherwise
Novel
Simply
Diverted
Attention
Passes
State
Preserves
States
Writing
Novels

More quotes by Anita Brookner

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You never know what you will learn till you start writing. Then you discover truths you never knew existed.
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Always let them think of you as singing and dancing.
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One loses the capacity to grieve as a child grieves, or to rage as a child rages: hotly, despairingly, with tears of passion. One grows up, one becomes civilized, one learns one's manners, and consequently can no longer manage these two functions - sorrow and anger - adequately.
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The evening passes somehow I watch television with Nancy, or I write. It is difficult, not having a family, and it is difficult to explain. I always go to bed early. And I am always ready for Monday morning, that time that other people dread.
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For once a thing is known, it can never be unknown. It can only be forgotten.
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The self-fulfilled woman is far from reality.
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I think you always feel braver in another language.
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Writing has freed me from the despair of living.
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Fiction is the great repository of the moral sense. The wicked get punished.
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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.
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Great writers are the saints for the godless.
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To remain pure, a novel has to cast a moral puzzle. Anything else is mere negotiation.
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Dr Weiss, at forty, knew that her life had been ruined by literature.
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Problems of human behavior still continue to baffle us, but at least in the Library we have them properly filed.
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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.
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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.
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Accountability in friendship is the equivalent of love without strategy.
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No blame should attach to telling the truth. But it does, it does.
Anita Brookner
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When you make a break for freedom you don't necessarily find company on the way.
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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.
Anita Brookner