Anita Brookner

The lessons taught in great books are misleading. The commerce in life is rarely so simple and never so just.

I've never got on very well with Jane Austen.

Accountability in friendship is the equivalent of love without strategy.

If I were happy, married with six children, I wouldn't be writing. And I doubt if I should want to.

I was brought up to look after my parents. My family were Polish Jews, and we lived with my grandmother, with uncles and aunts and cousins all around, and I thought everybody lived like that.

Time misspent in youth is sometimes all the freedom one ever has.

There are moments when you feel free, moments when you have energy, moments when you have hope, but you can't rely on any of these things to see you through. Circumstances do that.

It is my contention that Aesop was writing for the tortoise market. hares have no time to read.

In real life, it is the hare who wins. Every time. Look around you. And in any case it is my contention that Aesop was writing for the tortoise market. Hares have no time to read. They are too busy winning the game.

A complete woman is probably not a very admirable creature. She is manipulative, uses other people to get her own way, and works within whatever system she is in.