Julian Barnes: Quotes about life

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

“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.”

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

“The more you learn, the less you fear. "Learn" not in the sense of academic study, but in the practical understanding of life.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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?”

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

“Novels tell us the most truth about life: what it is, how we live it, what it might be for, how we enjoy and value it, and how we lose it.”