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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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Anita Brookner
Age: 87 †
Born: 1928
Born: July 16
Died: 2016
Died: March 10
Art Historian
Novelist
University Teacher
Writer
London
England
Circumstances
Free
Hope
Energy
Moments
Feel
Feels
Things
Rely

More quotes by Anita Brookner

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Dr Weiss, at forty, knew that her life had been ruined by literature.
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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.
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You can never betray the people who are dead.
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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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To remain pure, a novel has to cast a moral puzzle. Anything else is mere negotiation.
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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.
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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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Like many rich men, he thought in anecdotes like many simple women, she thought in terms of biography.
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And without understanding, could each properly love the other?
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When you make a break for freedom you don't necessarily find company on the way.
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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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Great writers are the saints for the godless.
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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.
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Satire is dependent on strong beliefs, and on strong beliefs wounded.
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No blame should attach to telling the truth. But it does, it does.
Anita Brookner
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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.
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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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The self-fulfilled woman is far from reality.
Anita Brookner
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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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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