Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Anita Brookner (English Novelist, Art Historian)

Anita Brookner (1928–2016) was an English art historian and novelist. A respected academic of art history, she started writing novels at age 53 and produced many novels that are considered elegant, witty, and filled with melancholy.

Born in London to Polish Jewish immigrants, Brookner earned a PhD in art history and taught that subject at Reading 1959–64, Cambridge 1967–68, and the Courtauld Institute of Art 1977–88. She was a popular and respected teacher and an authority on 18th- and 19th-century painting. She published several works in her field, including The Genius of the Future: Studies in French Art Criticism (1971,) and Greuze: The Rise and Fall of an Eighteenth Century Phenomenon (1972.)

In her 50s, Brookner started to worry about what she would do after she retired. She liked to read fiction, so she decided to concentrate on writing fiction. Her first novel, A Start in Life (1981,) was published when she was 53. She wrote one new novel every summer, publishing 24 novels in the 30 years.

Brookner’s other titles include Providence (1982,) A Misalliance (1986,) Hotel du Lac (1984; Booker Prize; TV adaption, 1986,) Undue Influence (1999,) The Rules of Engagement (2003,) and Strangers (2009.)

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Anita Brookner

Real love is a pilgrimage. It happens when there is no strategy, but it is very rare because most people are strategists.
—Anita Brookner
Topics: Love

For once a thing is known, it can never be unknown. It can only be forgotten.
—Anita Brookner

Not everyone is born to fulfill an heroic role. The only realistic ambition is to live in the present. And sometimes, quite often in fact, this is more than enough to keep one busy. Time, which was once squandered, must now be given over to the actual, the possible, and perhaps that evanescent hope of a good outcome which never deserts one, and which should never be abandoned.
—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
Topics: Men & Women, Lovers

The lessons taught in great books are misleading. The commerce in life is rarely so simple and never so just.
—Anita Brookner
Topics: Reading, Books

The essence of romantic love is that wonderful beginning, after which sadness and impossibility may become the rule.
—Anita Brookner
Topics: Romance

What is interesting about self-analysis is that it leads nowhere—it is an art form in itself.
—Anita Brookner
Topics: Identity

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.
—Anita Brookner
Topics: God, Fortune

Time misspent in youth is sometimes all the freedom one ever has.
—Anita Brookner
Topics: Youth

Love imposes obligations and these are constant. An intermittent lover is no use to a person of dignity and courage.
—Anita Brookner

You have no idea how promising the world begins to look once you have decided to have it all for yourself. And how much healthier your decisions are once they become entirely selfish.
—Anita Brookner
Topics: Selfishness

People feel at home with low moral standards. It is scruples that put them off.
—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.
—Anita Brookner
Topics: Romance

You never know what you will learn till you start writing. Then you discover truths you never knew existed.
—Anita Brookner

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