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
Diverted
Attention
Passes
State
Preserves
States
Novels
Writing
Innocence
Otherwise
Novel
Simply

More quotes by Anita Brookner

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Death is only a small interruption.
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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.
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The self-fulfilled woman is far from reality.
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Time misspent in youth is sometimes all the freedom one ever has.
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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.
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I was brought up among the sort of self-important women who had a husband as one has an alibi.
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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
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Like many rich men, he thought in anecdotes like many simple women, she thought in terms of biography.
Anita Brookner
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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.
Anita Brookner
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Problems of human behavior still continue to baffle us, but at least in the Library we have them properly filed.
Anita Brookner
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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.
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The essence of romantic love is that wonderful beginning, after which sadness and impossibility may become the rule.
Anita Brookner
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And without understanding, could each properly love the other?
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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.
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Writing has freed me from the despair of living.
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.
Anita Brookner
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I am 46, and have been for some time past.
Anita Brookner
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Fiction is the great repository of the moral sense. The wicked get punished.
Anita Brookner
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Life is a pilgrimage and if you don't play by the rules you don't find the Road to Damascus, you find the Crown of Thorns.
Anita Brookner
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I need noise and interruptions and irritation: irritation and discomfort are a great starter. The loneliness of doing it any other way would kill me.
Anita Brookner