Daily Anita Brookner

A daily dose of author and art historian Anita Brookner from her novels, criticism, and interviews.

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Desire afflicted the old mainly as longing.
— A Private View, 1994

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She saw the virtue—and it was a virtue—of living for the moment. She understood how adventurers could justify their actions. She sympathised with predators.
— Visitors, 1997

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Christine had always known that she would marry Fibich, although he had not always known it himself. From her first sight of him, pale, teary, but oddly glamorous with his long legs and dark hair, she had thought, 'I can make you better.'
— Latecomers, 1988

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She was not beautiful but she had such an aura of power that she claimed one's entire attention.
— Look at Me, 1983

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If she were determined to keep him at arms' length, he would bring into play his secret weapon, that edge of exasperation which had helped him, over the years, to criticise others almost as severely as he criticised himself.
— Strangers, 2009

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He was an unbeliever: the comforts of religion had been reported to him, but they had sounded more like torments.
— A Private View, 1994

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One longs to know how others behave, yet at the same time one evades the knowledge.
— The Rules of Engagement, 2003

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Never had his flat appeared so inhospitable, as if it had received no visitors in decades. This was more or less the case.
— Strangers, 2009

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'You mean you are in love with her?'
'It is by no means as straightforward as that.'
— A Misalliance, 1986

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'Remember, Lewis,' his mother had said, 'Never buy cakes unwrapped.'
— Lewis Percy, 1989

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I slipped out into the beautiful night, in which even the sound of a police siren made a relatively civilised noise.
— Altered States, 1996

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Patrick was now immovably a bachelor and would remain one whatever his marital status turned out to be.
— A Misalliance, 1986

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Her marriage seemed to her like a form of honourable retirement.
— A Closed Eye, 1991

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She was looking well, or as well as she ever would. She was appropriately dressed. She was suitable.
— Providence, 1982

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She smiled sadly. 'It never goes away, does it?'
'I'm sorry?'
'The longing to be with another person.'
— The Next Big Thing, 2002

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'My dearest David,
'This is the last letter that I shall ever write to you and the first one I shall ever post.
— Hotel du Lac, 1984

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To suppose that those who are sexually inactive are also sexually inarticulate is a grave mistake.
— Family and Friends, 1985

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They were not simply solipsists, they were soliloquists, drawn together in a fateful bond which demanded witnesses.
— Undue Influence, 1999

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As the Ancients knew, luxury weakens both the body and the resolve.
— Leaving Home, 2005

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He loved me rather too much, in ways I could hardly accommodate.
— The Rules of Engagement, 2003