Anita Brookner quotes

" The lessons taught in great books are misleading. The commerce in life is rarely so simple and never so just. " # Books - Reading # Economy and Economics # Life and Living

" Accountability in friendship is the equivalent of love without strategy. " # Friends and Friendship # Freedom # Power

" Time misspent in youth is sometimes all the freedom one ever has. " # Youth # Freedom # Time and Time Management

" She was a handsome woman of forty-five and would remain so for many years. " # Age and Aging # Women # Men and Women

" Writing novels preserves you in a state of innocence -- a lot passes you by -- simply because your attention is otherwise diverted. " # Fiction # Books - Reading # Writers and Writing

" 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. " # God # Freedom # Power

" What is interesting about self-analysis is that it leads nowhere -- it is an art form in itself. " # Introspection # Arts and Artists # Psychoanalysis

" 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. " # Judaism and Jews # Jesus Christ # Love

" 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. " # Lovers # Friends and Friendship # Love

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