Julian Barnes citations

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

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

“Yes, of course we were pretentious -- what else is youth for?”

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

“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.”