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The Bay of Angels QUOTES

The Bay of Angels QUOTES

1 " As my love for her grew more poignant and more threatened my impatience and my weariness grew. "

― Anita Brookner , The Bay of Angels

2 " The distractions of the past few days had merged into one major distraction and into one unanswerable question: how to live now? I needed no friend to whisper insidiously that life would be simpler, for I already knew that. Life would be simpler, but it would not be better. The world would be a lonelier place, and no amount of rationalization could alter this. "

― Anita Brookner , The Bay of Angels

3 " I have no lovers, if that is what you mean. I had them once, but that was when I was free.’ ‘One is never free. One has only the illusion of freedom. One is never free of obligations, whether explicit or implicit. The latter are the worst. "

― Anita Brookner , The Bay of Angels

4 " And my mother’s afternoon escapes from the house that she could not quite consider her own were an indication that loneliness can be felt even in the most ideal of circumstances. "

― Anita Brookner , The Bay of Angels

5 " No, darling, I never would have got used to it. I was used to being alone, that was the truth of the matter. A very sad truth, no doubt.’ ‘Don’t distress yourself.’ ‘He was such a marvellous man.’ She was crying freely now. ‘So generous with his feelings. So unselfishly anxious to make me feel at home. But how could I? He was a stranger to me. And it is possible to love a stranger, Zoë, a great deal, so much so that all I wanted was to make him happy, and to make him think that he had made me happy. He made me lonely in a different way, and I never became familiar with that kind of loneliness.’ ‘I thought marriage was a cure for loneliness.’ ‘So did I. And there was a longing in him that made me want to comfort him. He looked so upright, so impressive, but in fact I was stronger than he was. My task was not to let him see that. We had a pleasant life, certainly, but it was like being cast in a play, without an audition. And perhaps I wasn’t always as responsive as I might have been. I don’t mean . . . ’ She blushed. ‘I mean appreciative. I was always trying to do what I thought would please him. And sometimes I just longed to get out of the house, to be on my own again. I was happier when you were there. You didn’t seem to think there was anything wrong with me.’ ‘There wasn’t anything wrong with you.’ She shook her head sadly. ‘And now that I have my freedom again I don’t want it. "

― Anita Brookner , The Bay of Angels

6 " What I have instead may have been denied to those happy harassed mothers: I have that terrible freedom of which others are justifiably afraid. I now recognize its deep seriousness. I am free to live my life without restraint, and again without witnesses. This is not always a joyous procedure. On certain cold evenings, before the winter has turned into spring, I look out of my window and feel a sudden loneliness. I tell myself that this is due to the absence of the sun, and that once I am back in Nice the loneliness will vanish. My moments of cold sense disconcert me, for so far I have managed to maintain my resolution to live as I have chosen to live, transfixed by what I have assumed will be permanent when in fact it may be no more than temporary. "

― Anita Brookner , The Bay of Angels

7 " The sounds of the traffic at my back hardly impinge on what is in effect a restoration of good will, of joy. I do not make the mistake of ascribing this joy to any superhuman reminder of the brevity of life. I am aware once more of the force of nature. And at such moments I experience the fullness of nature and of its promises. Life has brought me to this condition of acceptance, and at last I understand that acceptance is all. I succumb to the genius of the place, and know true felicity. The sun is God. Of the rest it is wiser not to know, or not yet to know. The plot will unfold, with or without my help. It is my hope that there will be a place in it for all of us, for Jeanne, for Antoine, and for myself. Under the promise of that cloudless sky it seems that our lives together have only just begun. In that sense our story will run its course, and I realize, with a lifting of the heart, that it is not yet time to close the book. "

― Anita Brookner , The Bay of Angels