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

More quotes by Anita Brookner

Image
I am 46, and have been for some time past.
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
Writing has freed me from the despair of living.
Anita Brookner
Image
I think you always feel braver in another language.
Anita Brookner
Image
Problems of human behavior still continue to baffle us, but at least in the Library we have them properly filed.
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
Existentialism is about being a saint without God being your own hero, without all the sanction and support of religion or society.
Anita Brookner
Image
Satire is dependent on strong beliefs, and on strong beliefs wounded.
Anita Brookner
Image
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.
Anita Brookner
Image
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
Image
It is best to marry for purely selfish reasons.
Anita Brookner
Image
A man of such obvious and exemplary charm must be a liar.
Anita Brookner
Image
And without understanding, could each properly love the other?
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
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.
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
You can never betray the people who are dead.
Anita Brookner
Image
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
Image
The essence of romantic love is that wonderful beginning, after which sadness and impossibility may become the rule.
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