Strangers Quotes

“Maybe women were more realistic than men, maybe that was why they lived longer. But what hell they must endure in their selfishly guarded but lamentable old age.”
― Anita Brookner, Strangers

“Suddenly he longed for her return. She was his familiar, and by the same token his harshest critic. But even that harshness would be welcome on a day like today, when old associations were being stripped from him.”
― Anita Brookner, Strangers

“He had, in the past, wanted to be kind, and, as ever, had supplied the wrong sort of kindness.”
― Anita Brookner, Strangers

“Only the fantasy of choice remained.”
― Anita Brookner, Strangers

“Although he had been found attractive enough by women, he knew he had little to offer beyond his own conformity. But this stranger, who had sought his advice, seemed to regard him as a normal human being.”
― Anita Brookner, Strangers

“Women, after pursuit on his part, had found him disappointing in a way he had never fully understood. His appearance, he supposed, was misleading: he was tall, and to all intents and purposes agreeable to look at, but his longing — for home, for love, for consolation — let him down.”
― Anita Brookner, Strangers

“The women he had chosen, and who had, in one way or another, decided against him, had been more far-sighted than himself, and had discerned in his unremarkable courtship the prospect of a lifetime of boredom, though he had thought to provide them with everything that they desired. But they had desired an excitement which he could not provide. Now he recognized that they had been right to do so.”
― Anita Brookner, Strangers

“He regretted, as he did so many times these days, the structure of the working day. Without that he was truly alone, a condition he would not allow to become pathetic, but a condition nonetheless which caused him much grief.”
― Anita Brookner, Strangers

“Art, he felt, let him down. For great paintings he felt only respect. Museum spaces beckoned him in, even welcomed him, but then left him on his own.”
― Anita Brookner, Strangers