Quote

I was brought up among the sort of self-important women who had a husband as one has an alibi.

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
Women
Self
Important
Alibi
Brought
Husband
Among
Sort

More quotes by Anita Brookner

Image
I suppose what one wants really is ideal company and books are ideal company.
Anita Brookner
Image
For once a thing is known, it can never be unknown. It can only be forgotten.
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
I think you always feel braver in another language.
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
Time misspent in youth is sometimes all the freedom one ever has.
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
Satire is dependent on strong beliefs, and on strong beliefs wounded.
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
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
You never know what you will learn till you start writing. Then you discover truths you never knew existed.
Anita Brookner
Image
The self-fulfilled woman is far from reality.
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
Accountability in friendship is the equivalent of love without strategy.
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
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
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.
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
That sun, that light had faded, and she had faded with them. Now she was as grey as the season itself.
Anita Brookner
Image
You can never betray the people who are dead.
Anita Brookner