English novelist & art historian (1928-2016)
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.
ANITA BROOKNER
The Paris Review, fall 1987
Good women always think it is their fault when someone else is being offensive. Bad women never take the blame for anything.
ANITA BROOKNER
Hotel du Lac
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.
ANITA BROOKNER
Writers at Work
No man is free of his own history.
ANITA BROOKNER
Latecomers
With men passion is all at the beginning and with women it is all along.
ANITA BROOKNER
The Paris Review, fall 1987
It is often said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. But I suggest that the definition of sanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and being perfectly happy with the result.
ANITA BROOKNER
A Private View
Love, when you get fear in it, it's not love any more. It's hate.
ANITA BROOKNER
Look at Me
Life is a maze of doors, and all too often they are closed.
ANITA BROOKNER
The Misalliance
My idea of absolute happiness is to sit in a hot garden all day, reading, or writing, utterly safe in the knowledge that the person I love will come home to me in the evening. Every evening.
ANITA BROOKNER
Hotel du Lac