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
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
A man of such obvious and exemplary charm must be a liar.
– Anita Brookner
Accountability in friendship is the equivalent of love without strategy.
– Anita Brookner
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
Existentialism is about being a saint without God; being your own hero, without all the sanction and support of religion or society.
– Anita Brookner
Good women always think it is their fault when someone else is being offensive. Bad women never take the blame for anything.
– Anita Brookner
Great writers are the saints for the godless.
– Anita Brookner
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
Like many rich men, he thought in anecdotes; like many simple women, she thought in terms of biography.
– Anita Brookner
No blame should attach to telling the truth. But it does, it does.
– Anita Brookner
Old men should have more care to end life well than to live long.
– Anita Brookner
Real love is a pilgrimage. It happens when there is no strategy, but it is very rare because most people are strategists.
– Anita Brookner
Romanticism is not just a mode; it literally eats into every life. Women will never get rid of just waiting for the right man.
– Anita Brookner
The essence of romantic love is that wonderful beginning, after which sadness and impossibility may become the rule.
– Anita Brookner
The lessons taught in great books are misleading. The commerce in life is rarely so simple and never so just.
– Anita Brookner
Time misspent in youth is sometimes all the freedom one ever has.
– Anita Brookner
What is interesting about self-analysis is that it leads nowhere - it is an art form in itself.
– Anita Brookner
Writing novels preserves you in a state of innocence - a lot passes you by - simply because your attention is otherwise diverted.
– Anita Brookner
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
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
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.