Anita Brookner Interview by John Haffenden

Aphorism 62: “Regression effect acknowledged, the centre cannot hold!”

Full Quote: “But the centre cannot hold. Those two activities that you've mentioned are outside the natural order, I only ever wanted children, six sons.” Anita Brookner as quoted by John Haffenden, “Novelists in Interview,” London, New York, Methuen

Aphorism 61: “One's character determines one's fate!”

Full Quote: “I think one's character or predisposition determines one's fate. I'm afraid.” See above

Aphorism 60: “The power of images!”

Full Quote: “ What attracted me to art history is the power of images which act differently from words. Images recur in a way that words don’t.”

Aphorism 59: "Pull order out of chaos!"

Full Quote: "The artists of the eighteenth century were obsessed with pulling order out of the surrounding chaos, whereas in the nineteenth century it seemed more powerful and more valid to dissolve order . . . more true to the human condition."