Anita Brookner quotes - page 2

And yet she had never felt so bereft, as if her presence in other lives were entirely illusory, as if she herself were a kind of facsimile, pleasant but inauthentic. Before she got too old she must wrest some part of her life for herself, or she would fade, vanish, before anyone noticed her disappearance. (Anita Brookner)
Women have come a long way, of course: we can all be left alone at night now. But sometimes it seems a high price to pay. We can also open the door cheerfully to strangers at any hour, deal with obscene telephone calls and mend fuses. View quote
Anita Brookner
In the street the rain was little more than a fine mist which softened the outlines of the houses and even lent a touch of poetry to a neighbourhood unlikely to evoke tender emotions. He raised his eyes to a roofline bristling with television aerials, lowered them again to windows still blank before the evening lights were lit. View quote
Anita Brookner
The house - a substantial but essentially modest suburban villa - was furnished with voluptuous grandeur in approximations of various styles, predominantly those of several Louis, with late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century additions. Heavy coloured glass ashtrays of monstrous size and weight rested in inlaid marquetry tables of vaguely Pompadour associations. At dinner we drank champagne from ruby Bohemian glasses: the meat was carved at a Boulle-type sideboard. ‘Regency' wallpaper of dark green and lighter green stripes was partially covered by gilt-framed landscapes of no style whatsoever. View quote
Anita Brookner
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. View quote
Anita Brookner
I was brought up among the sort of self-important women who had a husband as one has an alibi. View quote
Anita Brookner
It is my contention that Aesop was writing for the tortoise market. hares have no time to read. View quote
Anita Brookner
In real life, of course, it is the hare that wins. Every time. Look around you. View quote
Anita Brookner
Old men should have more care to end life well than to live long. View quote
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. View quote
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)