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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.

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
Decision
Promising
Idea
Healthier
Become
Selfishness
Ideas
Entirely
Look
Selfish
Looks
Begins
Much
Decisions
World
Decided

More quotes by Anita Brookner

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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.
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The lessons taught in great books are misleading. The commerce in life is rarely so simple and never so just.
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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.
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Writing novels preserves you in a state of innocence - a lot passes you by - simply because your attention is otherwise diverted.
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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.
Anita Brookner
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Dr Weiss, at forty, knew that her life had been ruined by literature.
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When you make a break for freedom you don't necessarily find company on the way.
Anita Brookner
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Good women always think it is their fault when someone else is being offensive. Bad women never take the blame for anything.
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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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Death is only a small interruption.
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Great writers are the saints for the godless.
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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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It is best to marry for purely selfish reasons.
Anita Brookner
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What is interesting about self-analysis is that it leads nowhere - it is an art form in itself.
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I suppose what one wants really is ideal company and books are ideal company.
Anita Brookner
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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.
Anita Brookner
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And without understanding, could each properly love the other?
Anita Brookner
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For once a thing is known, it can never be unknown. It can only be forgotten.
Anita Brookner
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Always let them think of you as singing and dancing.
Anita Brookner