Julian Barnes: Trending quotes

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Julian Barnes: 154 quotes3 likes

“You put together two things that have not been put together before. And the world is changed…”

Julian Barnes

Source: Levels of Life

“What makes us want to know the worst? Is it that we tire of preferring to know the best? Does curiosity always hurdle self-interest? Or is it, more simply, that wanting to know the worst is love's favorite perversion.”

Julian Barnes

“I know this much: that there is objective time, but also subjective time, the kind you wear on the inside of your wrist, next to where the pulse lies. And this personal time, which is the true time, is measured in your relationship to memory.”

Julian Barnes book The Sense of an Ending

Source: The Sense of an Ending

“Books say: She did this because. Life says: She did this. Books are where things are explained to you; life is where things aren't. I'm not surprised some people prefer books.”

Julian Barnes book Flaubert's Parrot

Source: Flaubert's Parrot

“This was another of our fears: that Life wouldn't turn out to be like Literature.”

Julian Barnes book The Sense of an Ending

Source: The Sense of an Ending

“History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation.”

Julian Barnes book The Sense of an Ending

Source: The Sense of an Ending

“What you end up remembering isn't always the same as what you have witnessed.”

Julian Barnes book The Sense of an Ending

Source: The Sense of an Ending

“It strikes me that this may be one of the differences between youth and age: when we are young, we invent different futures for ourselves; when we are old, we invent different pasts for others.”

Julian Barnes book The Sense of an Ending

Source: The Sense of an Ending

“Women scheme when they are weak, they lie out of fear. Men scheme when they are strong, they lie out of arrogance.”

Julian Barnes book Flaubert's Parrot

Source: Flaubert's Parrot

“To be stupid, and selfish, and to have good health are the three requirements for happiness - though if stupidity is lacking, the others are useless.”

Julian Barnes book Flaubert's Parrot

Source: Flaubert's Parrot

“The greatest patriotism is to tell your country when it is behaving dishonorably, foolishly, viciously.”

Julian Barnes book Flaubert's Parrot

Source: Flaubert's Parrot

“Sometimes I think the purpose of life is to reconcile us to its eventual loss by wearing us down, by proving, however long it takes, that life isn't all it's cracked up to be.”

Julian Barnes book The Sense of an Ending

Source: The Sense of an Ending

“Women were brought up to believe that men were the answer. They weren't. They weren't even one of the questions.”

Julian Barnes

Source: A History of the World in 10½ Chapters

“History isn't the lies of the victors, as I once glibly assured Old Joe Hunt; I know that now. It's more the memories of the survivors, most of whom are neither victorious or defeated.”

Julian Barnes book The Sense of an Ending

Source: The Sense of an Ending

“The writer must be universal in sympathy and an outcast by nature: only then can he see clearly.”

Julian Barnes book Flaubert's Parrot

Source: Flaubert's Parrot

“I had wanted life not to bother me too much, and had succeeded - and how pitiful that was.”

Julian Barnes book The Sense of an Ending

Source: The Sense of an Ending

“When we fall in love, we hope - both egotistically and altruistically - that we shall be finally, truly seen: judged and approved. Of course, love does not always bring approval: being seen may just as well lead to a thumbs-down and a season in hell.”

Julian Barnes

Source: Nothing to Be Frightened Of

“And yet it takes only the smallest pleasure or pain to teach us time’s malleability.”

Julian Barnes book The Sense of an Ending

Source: The Sense of an Ending

“That's one of the central problems of history, isn't it, sir? The question of subjective versus objective interpretation, the fact that we need to know the history of the historian in order to understand the version that is being put in front of us.”

Julian Barnes book The Sense of an Ending

Source: The Sense of an Ending