Julian Barnes: Trending quotes

“History isn't what happened, history is just what historians tell us.”

Source: Nothing to Be Frightened Of

“Love is just a system for getting someone to call you Darling after sex.”

Source: A History of the World in 10½ Chapters

Julian Barnes book Talking It Over

Source: Talking It Over

“You can put it another way, of course; you always can.”

“There is accumulation. There is responsibility. And beyond this there is great unrest.”

Source: The Sense of an Ending

“Love may not lead where we think or hope, but regardless of outcome it should be a call to seriousness and truth. If it is not that - if it is not moral in its effect - then love is no more than an exaggerated form of pleasure.”

Source: The Sense of an Ending

“It's easy, after all, not to be a writer. Most people aren't writers, and very little harm comes to them.”

Source: Levels of Life

“What happiness is there in just the memory of happiness?”

Source: Flaubert's Parrot

“You put together two things that have not been put together before. And the world is changed. People may not notice at the time, but that doesn’t matter. The world has been changed nonetheless.”

Source: Levels of Life

“The best life for a writer is the life which helps him write the best books he can.”

Source: Levels of Life

“Perhaps the world progresses not by maturing, but by being in a permanent state of adolescence, of thrilled discovery.”

Source: Flaubert's Parrot

“May you be ordinary, as the poet once wished the new-born baby.”

Source: Levels of Life

“Irony - The modern mode: either the devil’s mark or the snorkel of sanity.”

Source: The Sense of an Ending

“Whisky, I find, helps clarity of thought. And reduces pain. It has the additional virtue of making you drunk or, if taken in sufficient quantity, very drunk.”

Source: Flaubert's Parrot

“Some of the freckles I once loved are now closer to liver spots. But it’s still the eyes we look at, isn’t it? That’s where we found the other person, and find them still.”

Source: The Sense of an Ending

“You get towards the end of life - no, not life itself, but of something else: the end of any likelihood of change in that life. You are allowed a long moment of pause, time enough to ask the question: what else have I done wrong?”

Source: The Sense of an Ending

“Had my life increased, or merely added to itself? There had been addition and subtraction in my life, but how much multiplication?”

Source: The Sense of an Ending

“If a man cannot tell what he wants to do, then he must find out what he ought to do. If desire has become complicated, then hold fast to duty.”

Source: The Sense of an Ending

Julian Barnes book Arthur & George

Source: Arthur & George

“Remember the botched brothel-visit in L’Education sentimentale and remember its lesson. Do not participate: happiness lies in the imagination, not the act. Pleasure is found first in anticipation, later in memory.”

“Wisdom consists partly in not pretending anymore, in discarding artifice.”

Source: Flaubert's Parrot