A Private View Quotes

“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.”
― Anita Brookner, A Private View

“He had always shuddered at the cruelty of both stories, and in so doing had lost any simple beliefs, which had not, in any case, persisted after childhood, but having thought about the matter he preferred Pandora to Eve. Pandora let loose Discord, but at the bottom of the box discovered Hope. There was thus the relief of something saved, essential to any story, although when hope outlasted expectation the outcome was disillusion. That he was beginning to understand.”
― Anita Brookner, A Private View

“His sleeplessness seemed to confine him to a ghetto, in which the forsaken, the forgotten, and the unsatisfied were his fellow inmates. It seemed to him that women in these situations could not possibly experience the same degree of loneliness.”
― Anita Brookner, A Private View