Time & Perspective Quote by Anita Brookner

Speed wins in the world Brookner is pointing at, and she’s daring you to stop pretending otherwise. By flipping Aesop’s moral on its head, she turns a children’s fable into a bleak little audit of adult life: merit, patience, and steady effort make for a comforting story, not a reliable outcome. The “of course” is doing quiet, ruthless work. It implies the truth is obvious, that we cling to the tortoise myth not because it’s accurate but because it’s socially useful - a parable that flatters endurance and keeps people compliant.

“As a historian,” Brookner’s stance matters. She’s not offering a personal gripe; she’s adopting the historian’s cold eye for patterns: who rises, who gets rewarded, who gets remembered. History, as she suggests, often crowns the quick - the well-positioned, the opportunistic, the charismatic - while the diligent plodder becomes a footnote or a cautionary tale. “Every time” is hyperbole with purpose: not a statistical claim, but a corrective to sentimental thinking.

Then comes the knife-twist: “Look around you.” That imperative drags the quote out of the library and into your office, your feeds, your politics. It’s an accusation aimed at anyone still clinging to the moral universe where effort guarantees justice. Brookner isn’t celebrating the hare; she’s naming the system that breeds him - and the self-protective myths we tell so we can live with it.