“She leaned back in her chair and raised her face to the sun, mildly intoxicated, not so much by the wine as by the scope of this important argument. Seduced, also, by the possibility that she might please herself, simply… — Anita Brookner Copy Share
If I were happy, married with six children, I wouldn't be writing. And I doubt if I should want to. — Anita Brookner Copy Share 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… — Anita Brookner Copy Share Image
I never learnt Hebrew because my health was fragile, and it was thought that learning Hebrew would be an added burden. I regret it,… — Anita Brookner Copy Share 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… — Anita Brookner Copy Share Image
The essence of romantic love is that wonderful beginning, after which sadness and impossibility may become the rule. — Anita Brookner Copy Share Image
I need noise and interruptions and irritation: irritation and discomfort are a great starter. The loneliness of doing it any other way would kill… — Anita Brookner Copy Share Image
I am not a romantic. I am a domestic animal. I do not sigh and yearn for extravagant displays of passion, for the grand affair, the world well lost for love. I know all that, and know that it leaves you lonely. No, what I crave is the simplicity of routine. An evening walk, arm in arm, in fine weather.… — Anita Brookner Copy Share
“It seemed to me that I, rather than he, had brought this about, and my despair was extreme. For now that I knew that I loved him, it was his whole life that I loved. And I would never know that life. Changes would no doubt take place, and I would not even know what they were. 'How is he?'… — Anita Brookner Copy Share
I was brought up to look after my parents. My family were Polish Jews, and we lived with my grandmother, with uncles and aunts… — Anita Brookner Copy Share Image
“We shall none of us ever make love again, she thought, and did not much care. Life had not been too harsh; the sea… — Anita Brookner Copy Share Image
