Anita Brookner

Real love is a pilgrimage. It happens when there is no strategy, but it is very rare because most people are strategists.

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

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.

Good women always think it is their fault when someone else is being offensive. Bad women never take the blame for anything.

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

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.

Accountability in friendship is the equivalent of love without strategy.

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.

A man of such obvious and exemplary charm must be a liar.

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.