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Existentialism is about being a saint without God being your own hero, without all the sanction and support of religion or society.

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
Religion
Existentialism
Without
Sanctions
Philosophical
Saint
God
Hero
Support
Society
Sanction

More quotes by Anita Brookner

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Writing has freed me from the despair of living.
Anita Brookner
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I suppose what one wants really is ideal company and books are ideal company.
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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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The lessons taught in great books are misleading. The commerce in life is rarely so simple and never so just.
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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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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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Accountability in friendship is the equivalent of love without strategy.
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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.
Anita Brookner
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The self-fulfilled woman is far from reality.
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You can never betray the people who are dead.
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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.
Anita Brookner
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A man of such obvious and exemplary charm must be a liar.
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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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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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You can never betray the people who are dead, so you go on being a public Jew the dead can't answer slurs, but I'm here. I would love to think that Jesus wants me for a sunbeam, but he doesn't.
Anita Brookner
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That sun, that light had faded, and she had faded with them. Now she was as grey as the season itself.
Anita Brookner
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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.
Anita Brookner
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Dr Weiss, at forty, knew that her life had been ruined by literature.
Anita Brookner
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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.
Anita Brookner