Quote

For once a thing is known, it can never be unknown. It can only be forgotten.

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
Thing
Never
Unknown
Forgotten
Known

More quotes by Anita Brookner

Image
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
Image
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
Image
The essence of romantic love is that wonderful beginning, after which sadness and impossibility may become the rule.
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
Problems of human behavior still continue to baffle us, but at least in the Library we have them properly filed.
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
I was brought up among the sort of self-important women who had a husband as one has an alibi.
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
Always let them think of you as singing and dancing.
Anita Brookner
Image
Great writers are the saints for the godless.
Anita Brookner
Image
I suppose what one wants really is ideal company and books are ideal company.
Anita Brookner
Image
Writing has freed me from the despair of living.
Anita Brookner
Image
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
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
No blame should attach to telling the truth. But it does, it does.
Anita Brookner
Image
Accountability in friendship is the equivalent of love without strategy.
Anita Brookner
Image
Dr Weiss, at forty, knew that her life had been ruined by literature.
Anita Brookner
Image
A man of such obvious and exemplary charm must be a liar.
Anita Brookner
Image
What is interesting about self-analysis is that it leads nowhere - it is an art form in itself.
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