Anita Brookner

Author. Art historian. Genius. Disappointed woman.
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All tweets are quotes from Brookner's writings and interviews, collected by Laura McPhee-Browne.

[Anita Brookner @BrooknerAnita]

Ask if you'd like to know where an Anita quote has been plucked from!

[Anita Brookner @BrooknerAnita]

I wanted, more than anything, a chance to be simple, once again, as I was meant to be, and as I had been long ago, a long, long time ago.

[Anita Brookner @BrooknerAnita]

Old men should have more care to end life well than to live long.

[Anita Brookner @BrooknerAnita]

One trails all sorts of things around with one, things that simply won't be got rid of.

[Anita Brookner @BrooknerAnita]

I would love to think that Jesus wants me for a sunbeam, but he doesn't.

[Anita Brookner @BrooknerAnita]

No blame should attach to telling the truth. But it does, it does.

[Anita Brookner @BrooknerAnita]

‘You’ve been reading too much. That was always your trouble.’

‘My trouble is that neither of these characters came out of a book. There were no happy endings.’

[Anita Brookner @BrooknerAnita]

One had simply to exist, in a state of dreamy indirection, for the plot to work itself out.

[Anita Brookner @BrooknerAnita]

The sun is God.

[Anita Brookner @BrooknerAnita]

She saw now that shame and guilt were otiose; only regret was permissible.

[Anita Brookner @BrooknerAnita]

It had been a beautiful day, and the evening was clear. She could hear the sounds of home-going traffic and longed to be out in the street, sharing the hour at which it was legitimate to think of pleasure.

[Anita Brookner @BrooknerAnita]

Under the promise of that cloudless sky it seems that our lives together have only just begun. In that sense our story will run its course, and I realize, with a lifting of the heart, that it is not yet time to close the book.

[Anita Brookner @BrooknerAnita]

I prefer, at such moments, to feel the heat of the day, to let my thoughts become as evanescent as the ambient air.

[Anita Brookner @BrooknerAnita]

For the moment all is well. The future is, in a sense, taken care of: it is in another’s hands.

[Anita Brookner @BrooknerAnita]

Life has brought me to this condition of acceptance, and at last I understand that acceptance is all.

[Anita Brookner @BrooknerAnita]

The plot will unfold, with or without my help.

[Anita Brookner @BrooknerAnita]

It would have been unwise to disregard the compelling power of the sun, but it would now be wise to proceed as if the sun were unlikely to shine for ever.

[Anita Brookner @BrooknerAnita]

I made no wish, turned no money in my pocket. The adventure was over.

[Anita Brookner @BrooknerAnita]

In fact what is so precious about this friendship – for it is a true friendship – is that it has involved no change of character, no effort to meet the other’s requirements. We find each other acceptable as we are, and thus there is no room for any possible comparisons.

[Anita Brookner @BrooknerAnita]

They say that love is the antidote to death; they even say that love is more powerful than death. I was willing to believe it, even anxious to do so. But in the absence of a lover this is not entirely possible.

[Anita Brookner @BrooknerAnita]

There would be no happy ending. I should have to live without such consoling fictions, as most people do.