"She was a handsome woman of forty-five and would remain so for many years."

Brookner, Anita on Age and Aging
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"Writing novels preserves you in a state of innocence -- a lot passes you by -- simply because your attention is otherwise diverted."

Brookner, Anita on Fiction
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"Accountability in friendship is the equivalent of love without strategy."

Brookner, Anita on Friends and Friendship
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"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."

Brookner, Anita on God
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"What is interesting about self-analysis is that it leads nowhere -- it is an art form in itself."

Brookner, Anita on Introspection
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"You can never betray the people who are dead, so you go on being a public Jew; the dead can't answer slurs, but I'm here. I would love to think that Jesus wants me for a sunbeam, but he doesn't."

Brookner, Anita on Judaism and Jews
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"Real love is a pilgrimage. It happens when there is no strategy, but it is very rare because most people are strategists."

Brookner, Anita on Love
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"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."

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

Brookner, Anita on Philosophers and Philosophy
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"The essence of romantic love is that wonderful beginning, after which sadness and impossibility may become the rule."

Brookner, Anita on Romance and Romanticism
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"Romanticism is not just a mode; it literally eats into every life. Women will never get rid of just waiting for the right man."

Brookner, Anita on Romance and Romanticism
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"The lessons taught in great books are misleading. The commerce in life is rarely so simple and never so just."

Brookner, Anita on Books - Reading
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"A man of such obvious and exemplary charm must be a liar."

Brookner, Anita on Charm
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"Like many rich men, he thought in anecdotes; like many simple women, she thought in terms of biography."

Brookner, Anita on Thoughts and Thinking
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"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."

Brookner, Anita on Women
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"Good women always think it is their fault when someone else is being offensive. Bad women never take the blame for anything."

Brookner, Anita on Women
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"It will be a pity if women in the more conventional mould are to be phased out, for there will never be anyone to go home to."

Brookner, Anita on Women
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"Great writers are the saints for the godless."

Brookner, Anita on Writers and Writing
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"Time misspent in youth is sometimes all the freedom one ever has."

Brookner, Anita on Youth
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"No blame should attach to telling the truth. But it does, it does."

Brookner, Anita on Confession
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