Anita Brookner
Anita Brookner
Anita Brookner, CBEwas a British award-winning novelist and art historian. She was Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Cambridge from 1967 to 1968 and was the first woman to hold this visiting professorship. She was awarded the 1984 Man Booker Prize for her novel Hotel du Lac...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionHistorian
Date of Birth16 July 1938
understanding
And without understanding, could each properly love the other?
women simple thinking
Like many rich men, he thought in anecdotes; like many simple women, she thought in terms of biography.
new-ventures games unfinished-business
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.
truth doe blame
No blame should attach to telling the truth. But it does, it does.
winning favors ancient
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.
jesus thinking people
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.
growing-up children passion
One loses the capacity to grieve as a child grieves, or to rage as a child rages: hotly, despairingly, with tears of passion. One grows up, one becomes civilized, one learns one's manners, and consequently can no longer manage these two functions - sorrow and anger - adequately.
forgotten known
For once a thing is known, it can never be unknown. It can only be forgotten.
women home pity
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.
loneliness irritation needs
I need noise and interruptions and irritation: irritation and discomfort are a great starter. The loneliness of doing it any other way would kill me.
book writing simple
The lessons taught in great books are misleading. The commerce in life is rarely so simple and never so just.
men waiting romance
Romanticism is not just a mode; it literally eats into every life. Women will never get rid of just waiting for the right man.
reality self fulfilled
The self-fulfilled woman is far from reality.
philosophical hero support
Existentialism is about being a saint without God; being your own hero, without all the sanction and support of religion or society.