Quotes from book
Flaubert's Parrot

Flaubert's Parrot
Julian Barnes

Flaubert's Parrot is a novel by Julian Barnes that was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1984 and won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize the following year. The novel recites amateur Gustave Flaubert expert Geoffrey Braithwaite's musings on his subject's life, and his own, as he looks for a stuffed parrot that inspired the great author.

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“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

Julian Barnes photo

“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

Julian Barnes photo

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

Julian Barnes book Flaubert's Parrot

Source: Flaubert's Parrot

Julian Barnes photo

“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.”

Julian Barnes book Flaubert's Parrot

Source: Flaubert's Parrot

Julian Barnes photo

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

Julian Barnes book Flaubert's Parrot

Source: Flaubert's Parrot

Julian Barnes photo

“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

Julian Barnes photo

“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.”

Julian Barnes book Flaubert's Parrot

Source: Flaubert's Parrot

Julian Barnes photo

“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

Julian Barnes photo

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

Julian Barnes book Flaubert's Parrot

Source: Flaubert's Parrot

Julian Barnes photo

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

Julian Barnes book Flaubert's Parrot

Source: Flaubert's Parrot

Julian Barnes photo

“His air of failure had nothing desperate about it; rather, it seemed to stem from an unresented realisation that he was not cut out for success, and his duty was therefore to ensure only that he failed in the correct and acceptable fashion.”

Julian Barnes book Flaubert's Parrot

Source: Flaubert's Parrot

Julian Barnes photo

“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.”

Julian Barnes book Flaubert's Parrot

Source: Flaubert's Parrot

Julian Barnes photo

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

Julian Barnes book Flaubert's Parrot

Source: Flaubert's Parrot

Julian Barnes photo

“If the writer were more like a reader, he’d be a reader, not a writer. It’s as uncomplicated as that.”

Julian Barnes book Flaubert's Parrot

Source: Flaubert's Parrot

Julian Barnes photo

“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

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