"I saw the business of writing for what it truly was and is to me. It is your penance for not being lucky. It is an attempt to reach others and to make them love you. It is your instinctive protest, when you find you have no voice at the world's tribunals, and that no one will speak for you. I would give my entire output of words, past, present, and to come, in exchange for easier access to the world, for permission to state "I hurt" or "I hate" or "I want." Or, indeed, "Look at me." And I do not go back on this. For once a thing is known it can never be unknown. It can only be forgotten. And writing is the enemy of forgetfulness, of thoughtlessness. For the writer there is no oblivion. Only endless memory."
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Historians from EnglandNovelists from EnglandWomen authors from EnglandArt historiansBooker Prize winners
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Anita Brookner
Anita Brookner (16 July 1928 – 10 March 2016) was an English novelist and art historian. She was educated at James Allen's Girls' School. She received a BA in History from King's College London in 1949 and a doctorate in Art History from the Courtauld Institute of Art in 1953. In 1967, she became the first woman to hold the Slade Professorship of Fine Art at Cambridge University. She was promoted to Reader at the Courtauld Institute of Art in 1977, where she worked until her retirement in 1988.
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