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
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
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
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
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
Love imposes obligations and these are constant. An intermittent lover is no use to a person of dignity and courage.
—Anita Brookner
Time misspent in youth is sometimes all the freedom one ever has.
—Anita Brookner
Topics: Youth
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
The lessons taught in great books are misleading. The commerce in life is rarely so simple and never so just.
—Anita Brookner
Topics: Books, Reading
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Rosamond Lehmann English Novelist
- Nancy Mitford English Novelist, Biographer
- Elizabeth Goudge English Novelist
- Zadie Smith (b.1975) English Novelist, Essayist, Short-story Writer
- A. S. Byatt English Novelist, Poet
- J. R. R. Tolkien British Philologist, Writer
- Philip Pullman English Children’s Author, Dramatist
- Ian McEwan (b.1948) British Novelist, Short-story Writer
- Hanif Kureishi British Novelist, Screenwriter
- Jackie Collins English Romance Novelist
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