Anita Brookner

[_] nobody grows up. Everyone carries around all the selves that they have ever been, intact, waiting to be reactivated in moments of pain, of fear, of danger. Everything is retrievable, every shock, every hurt. But perhaps it becomes a duty to abandon the stock of time that one carries within oneself, to discard it in favour of the present, so that one__ embrace may be turned outwards to the world in which one has made one__ home.

Of course, the spectacle of two people's happiness is always something of a magnet for the unclaimed.

Women share their sadness, thought Edith. Their joy they like to show off to one another. Victory, triumph over the odds, calls for an audience. And that air of bustle and exigence sometimes affected by the sexually loquacious - that is for the benefit of other women. No solidarity then.

That sun, that light had faded, and she had faded with them. Now she was as grey as the season itself.

Dr Weiss, at forty, knew that her life had been ruined by literature

Literature for me was a magnificent destiny for which I was not yet fully prepared. 76

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

I suppose what one wants really is ideal company and books are ideal company.

Boundaries keep people out mine served only to keep me in.

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

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

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

I was a teacher most of my life, which I loved. I had a very happy working life, and when I retired, I thought I must do something, and I've always read a lot of fiction - you learn so much from fiction. My sentimental education came mostly from fiction, I should say, so I thought I'd try.

Accountability in friendship is the equivalent of love without strategy.

No blame should attach to telling the truth.

Always let them think of you as singing and dancing.

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.

You get a lot of borderline cases in libraries.