"She was a handsome woman of forty-five and would remain so for many years."

Brookner, Anita on Age and Aging
Talk about quote · Email to friend · 0 fans >>

"Writing novels preserves you in a state of innocence -- a lot passes you by -- simply because your attention is otherwise diverted."

Brookner, Anita on Fiction
Talk about quote · Email to friend · 0 fans >>

"Accountability in friendship is the equivalent of love without strategy."

Brookner, Anita on Friends and Friendship
Talk about quote · Email to friend · 8 fans >>

"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."

Brookner, Anita on God
Talk about quote · Email to friend · 2 fans >>

"What is interesting about self-analysis is that it leads nowhere -- it is an art form in itself."

Brookner, Anita on Introspection
Talk about quote · Email to friend · 0 fans >>

"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."

Brookner, Anita on Judaism and Jews
Talk about quote · Email to friend · 0 fans >>

"Real love is a pilgrimage. It happens when there is no strategy, but it is very rare because most people are strategists."

Brookner, Anita on Love
Talk about quote · Email to friend · 3 fans >>

"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."

Brookner, Anita on Lovers
Talk about quote · Email to friend · 0 fans >>

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

Brookner, Anita on Philosophers and Philosophy
Talk about quote · Email to friend · 2 fans >>

"The essence of romantic love is that wonderful beginning, after which sadness and impossibility may become the rule."

Brookner, Anita on Romance and Romanticism
Talk about quote · Email to friend · 2 fans >>

"Romanticism is not just a mode; it literally eats into every life. Women will never get rid of just waiting for the right man."

Brookner, Anita on Romance and Romanticism
Talk about quote · Email to friend · 1 fans >>

"The lessons taught in great books are misleading. The commerce in life is rarely so simple and never so just."

Brookner, Anita on Books - Reading
Talk about quote · Email to friend · 0 fans >>

"A man of such obvious and exemplary charm must be a liar."

Brookner, Anita on Charm
Talk about quote · Email to friend · 1 fans >>

"Like many rich men, he thought in anecdotes; like many simple women, she thought in terms of biography."

Brookner, Anita on Thoughts and Thinking
Talk about quote · Email to friend · 0 fans >>

"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."

Brookner, Anita on Women
Talk about quote · Email to friend · 1 fans >>

"Good women always think it is their fault when someone else is being offensive. Bad women never take the blame for anything."

Brookner, Anita on Women
Talk about quote · Email to friend · 3 fans >>

"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."

Brookner, Anita on Women
Talk about quote · Email to friend · 1 fans >>

"Great writers are the saints for the godless."

Brookner, Anita on Writers and Writing
Talk about quote · Email to friend · 3 fans >>

"Time misspent in youth is sometimes all the freedom one ever has."

Brookner, Anita on Youth
Talk about quote · Email to friend · 3 fans >>

"No blame should attach to telling the truth. But it does, it does."

Brookner, Anita on Confession
Talk about quote · Email to friend · 3 fans >>