Julian Barnes: Trending quotes (page 2)

“I thought of the things that had happened to me over the years, and of how little I had made happen.”

“A pier is a disappointed bridge; yet stare at it for long enough and you can dream it to the other side of the Channel.”

“I don't believe in God, but I miss him.”

“Perhaps love is essential because it's unnecessary.”

“Memories of childhood were the dreams that stayed with you after you woke.”

“When you read a great book, you don't escape from life, you plunge deeper into it.”

“We thought we were being mature when we were only being safe. We imagined we were being responsible but were only being cowardly. What we called realism turned out to be a way of avoiding things rather than facing them.”

“Every love story is a potential grief story.”

“Later on in life, you expect a bit of rest, don't you? You think you deserve it. I did, anyway. But then you begin to understand that the reward of merit is not life's business.”

“Mystification is simple; clarity is the hardest thing of all.”

“He didn’t really like travel, of course. He liked the idea of travel, and the memory of travel, but not travel itself.”

“Because love is the meeting point of truth and magic. Truth, as in photography; magic, as in ballooning.”

“Nature is so exact, it hurts exactly as much as it is worth, so in a way one relishes the pain, I think. If it didn't matter, it wouldn't matter.”

“Everything you invent is true: you can be sure of that. Poetry is a subject as precise as geometry.”

“One of the troubles is this: the heart isn't heart-shaped.”

“Memory is identity…. You are what you have done; what you have done is in your memory; what you remember defines who you are; when you forget your life you cease to be, even before your death.”

“Life seemed even more of a guessing game than usual.”

“To own a certain book - and to choose it without help - is to define yourself.”

“Pride makes us long for a solution to things – a solution, a purpose, a final cause; but the better telescopes become, the more stars appear.”