Quote

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

Anita Brookner

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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

More quotes by Anita Brookner

Image
Like many rich men, he thought in anecdotes like many simple women, she thought in terms of biography.
Anita Brookner
Image
Good women always think it is their fault when someone else is being offensive. Bad women never take the blame for anything.
Anita Brookner
Image
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.
Anita Brookner
Image
Romanticism is not just a mode it literally eats into every life. Women will never get rid of just waiting for the right man.
Anita Brookner
Image
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.
Anita Brookner
Image
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.
Anita Brookner
Image
Dr Weiss, at forty, knew that her life had been ruined by literature.
Anita Brookner
Image
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
Image
Accountability in friendship is the equivalent of love without strategy.
Anita Brookner
Image
No blame should attach to telling the truth. But it does, it does.
Anita Brookner
Image
And without understanding, could each properly love the other?
Anita Brookner
Image
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.
Anita Brookner
Image
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.
Anita Brookner
Image
That sun, that light had faded, and she had faded with them. Now she was as grey as the season itself.
Anita Brookner
Image
Always let them think of you as singing and dancing.
Anita Brookner
Image
A man of such obvious and exemplary charm must be a liar.
Anita Brookner
Image
The lessons taught in great books are misleading. The commerce in life is rarely so simple and never so just.
Anita Brookner
Image
I think you always feel braver in another language.
Anita Brookner
Image
You never know what you will learn till you start writing. Then you discover truths you never knew existed.
Anita Brookner
Image
Great writers are the saints for the godless.
Anita Brookner