The largest website for English phrases and quotes

The largest website for English phrases and quotes

Category: Anita Brookner

Existentialism is about being a saint without God; being your own hero, without all the sanction and support of religion or society.

Hero, God, Support

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

Time, Freedom, Youth

I was a teacher most of my life, which I loved. I had a very happy working life, and when I retired, I thought I must do something, and I’ve always read a lot of fiction – you learn so much from fiction. My sentimental education came mostly from fiction, I should say, so I thought I’d try.

Life, Education, Happy

Accountability in friendship is the equivalent of love without strategy.

As a devil’s advocate Mr Neville was faultless. And yet, she knew, there was a flaw in his reasoning, just as there was a flaw in his ability to feel.

devil, fault, feelings, inability, sentimentality

And without understanding, could each properly love the other?

love, understanding

[…] nobody grows up. Everyone carries around all the selves that they have ever been, intact, waiting to be reactivated in moments of pain, of fear, of danger. Everything is retrievable, every shock, every hurt. But perhaps it becomes a duty to abandon the stock of time that one carries within oneself, to discard it in favour of the present, so that one’s embrace may be turned outwards to the world in which one has made one’s home.

past, present, self

Of course, the spectacle of two people’s happiness is always something of a magnet for the unclaimed.

I think that those few words were my greatest mistake.

quotes-about-life

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.

inspirational, life, live-in-the-moment, reality-of-life, wisdom

I reflected how easy it is for a man to reduce women of a certain age to imbecility. All he has to do is give an impersonation of desire, or better still, of secret knowledge, for a woman to feel herself a source of power.

aging, male-female-relationships

They had waited for too long, and the result was this hiatus, and the reflection that time and patience may bring poor rewards, that time itself, if not confronted at the appropriate juncture, can play sly tricks, and more significantly, that those who do not act are not infrequently acted upon.

aging, mortality, retirement