Anita Brookner Quotations

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.

People say that I am always serious and depressing, but it seems to me that the English are never serious - they are flippant, complacent, ineffable, but never serious, which is sometimes maddening.

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

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

Old men should have more care to end life well than to live long.

I never learnt Hebrew because my health was fragile, and it was thought that learning Hebrew would be an added burden. I regret it, because I would like to be able to join in fully. Not that I am a believer, but I would like to be.

In real life, of course, it is the hare that wins. Every time. Look around you.

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

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.

Death is only a small interruption.