You have no idea how promising the world begins to look once you have decided to have it all for yourself. And how much healthier your decisions are once they become entirely selfish.

Anita Brookner CBE (born 16 July 1928) is an English language novelist and art historian who was born in Herne Hill a suburb of London. Brookner has not married; and took care of her parents as they aged. Anita Brookner had a lonely childhood although her grandmother and uncle lived with the family and her parents secular Jews opened their house to Jewish refugees escaping Nazi persecution during the 1930s and World War II.