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Julian Barnes Quotes

The spring of 1930 marks the end of a period of grave concern... American business is steadily coming back to a normal level of prosperity Picture Quote #1

If you remember your past too well you start blaming your present for it. Look what they did to me, that’s what caused me to be like this, it’s not my fault. Permit me to correct you: it probably is your fault. And kindly spare me the details Picture Quote #1

Is any novelist going to recognize the moment when he or she has nothing more to say? It is a brave thing to admit. And since as a professional writer you are full of anxiety anyway, you could easily misread the signs Picture Quote #1

All bad things are exaggerated in the middle of the night. When you lie awake, you only think of bad things Picture Quote #1

Do we tend to recall the most important parts of a novel or those that speak most directly to us, the truest lines or the flashiest ones? Picture Quote #1

Grief seems at first to destroy not just all patterns, but also to destroy a belief that a pattern exists Picture Quote #1

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I’m a novelist, so I can’t write about ideas unless they’re attached to people Picture Quote #1

In 1980, I published my first novel, in the usual swirl of unjustified hope and justified anxiety Picture Quote #1

Most of us remember adolescence as a kind of double negative: no longer allowed to be children, we are not yet capable of being adults Picture Quote #1

Reading is a majority skill but a minority art. Yet nothing can replace the exact, complicated, subtle communion between absent author and entranced, present reader Picture Quote #1

Very few of my characters are based on people I’ve known. It is too constricting Picture Quote #1

Well, to be honest I think I tell less truth when I write journalism than when I write fiction Picture Quote #1

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Sometimes you find the panel, but it doesn’t open; sometimes it opens, and your gaze meets nothing but a mouse skeleton. But at least you’ve looked. That’s the real distinction between people: not between those who have secrets and those who don’t, but between those who want to know everything and those who don’t. This search is a sign of love I maintain Picture Quote #1

You can define a net two ways, depending on your point of view. Normally you would say it is a meshed instrument designed to catch fish. But you could, with no great injury to logic, reverse the image and define the net as a jocular lexicographer once did: he called it a collection of holes tied together with string Picture Quote #1

When you are young, you think that the old lament the deterioration of life because this makes it easier for them to die without regret. When you are old, you become impatient with the way in which the young applaud the most insignificant improvements … while remaining heedless of the world’s barbarism. I don’t say things have got worse; I merely say the young wouldn’t notice if they had. The old times were good because then we were young, and ignorant of how ignorant the young can be Picture Quote #1

The next day, when I was sober, I thought again about the three of us, and about time’s many paradoxes. For instance: that when we are young and sensitive, we are also at our most hurtful; whereas when the blood begins to slow, when we feel less sharply, when we are more armoured and have learnt how to bear hurt, we tread more carefully Picture Quote #1

And no, it wasn’t shame I now felt, or guilt, but something rarer in my life and stronger than both: remorse. A feeling which is more complicated, curdled, and primeval. Whose chief characteristic is that nothing can be done about it: too much time has passed, too much damage has been done, for amends to be made Picture Quote #1

... life is a gift bestowed without anyone asking for it; that the thinking person has a philosophical duty to examine both the nature of life and the conditions it comes with; and that if this person decides to renounce the gift no one asks for, it is the moral and human duty to act on the consequences of that decision Picture Quote #1

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He had a better mind and a more rigorous temperament than me; he thought logically, and then acted on the conclusion of logical thought. Whereas most of us, I suspect, do the opposite: we make an instinctive decision, then build up an infrastructure of reasoning to justify it. And call the result common sense Picture Quote #1

When you read a great book, you don’t escape from life, you plunge deeper into it. There may be a superficial escape – into different countries, mores, speech patterns – but what you are essentially doing is furthering your understanding of life’s subtleties, paradoxes, joys, pains and truths. Reading and life are not separate but symbiotic Picture Quote #1

When you are in your twenties, even if you’re confused and uncertain about your aims and purposes, you have a strong sense of what life itself is, and of what you in life are, and might become. Later.. later there is more uncertainty, more overlapping, more backtracking, more false memories. Back then, you can remember your short life in its entirety. Later, the memory becomes a thing of shreds and patches Picture Quote #1

You put together two people who have not been put together before; and sometimes the world is changed, sometimes not. They may crash and burn, or burn and crash. But sometimes, something new is made, and then the world is changed. Together, in that first exaltation, that first roaring sense of uplift, they are greater than their two separate selves. Together, they see further, and they see more clearly Picture Quote #1

But then you begin to understand that the reward of merit is not life’s business Picture Quote #1

But life never lets you go, does it? You can’t put down life the way you put down a book Picture Quote #1

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The spring of 1930 marks the end of a period of grave concern... American business is steadily coming back to a normal level of prosperity (Julian Barnes Quotes) If you remember your past too well you start blaming your present for it. Look what they did to me, that’s what caused me to be like this, it’s not my fault. Permit me to correct you: it probably is your fault. And kindly spare me the details (Julian Barnes Quotes) Is any novelist going to recognize the moment when he or she has nothing more to say? It is a brave thing to admit. And since as a professional writer you are full of anxiety anyway, you could easily misread the signs (Julian Barnes Quotes) All bad things are exaggerated in the middle of the night. When you lie awake, you only think of bad things (Julian Barnes Quotes) Do we tend to recall the most important parts of a novel or those that speak most directly to us, the truest lines or the flashiest ones? (Julian Barnes Quotes) Grief seems at first to destroy not just all patterns, but also to destroy a belief that a pattern exists (Julian Barnes Quotes) I’m a novelist, so I can’t write about ideas unless they’re attached to people (Julian Barnes Quotes) In 1980, I published my first novel, in the usual swirl of unjustified hope and justified anxiety (Julian Barnes Quotes) Most of us remember adolescence as a kind of double negative: no longer allowed to be children, we are not yet capable of being adults (Julian Barnes Quotes) Reading is a majority skill but a minority art. Yet nothing can replace the exact, complicated, subtle communion between absent author and entranced, present reader (Julian Barnes Quotes) Very few of my characters are based on people I’ve known. It is too constricting (Julian Barnes Quotes) Well, to be honest I think I tell less truth when I write journalism than when I write fiction (Julian Barnes Quotes) Sometimes you find the panel, but it doesn’t open; sometimes it opens, and your gaze meets nothing but a mouse skeleton. But at least you’ve looked. That’s the real distinction between people: not between those who have secrets and those who don’t, but between those who want to know everything and those who don’t. This search is a sign of love I maintain (Julian Barnes Quotes) You can define a net two ways, depending on your point of view. Normally you would say it is a meshed instrument designed to catch fish. But you could, with no great injury to logic, reverse the image and define the net as a jocular lexicographer once did: he called it a collection of holes tied together with string (Julian Barnes Quotes) When you are young, you think that the old lament the deterioration of life because this makes it easier for them to die without regret. When you are old, you become impatient with the way in which the young applaud the most insignificant improvements … while remaining heedless of the world’s barbarism. I don’t say things have got worse; I merely say the young wouldn’t notice if they had. The old times were good because then we were young, and ignorant of how ignorant the young can be (Julian Barnes Quotes) The next day, when I was sober, I thought again about the three of us, and about time’s many paradoxes. For instance: that when we are young and sensitive, we are also at our most hurtful; whereas when the blood begins to slow, when we feel less sharply, when we are more armoured and have learnt how to bear hurt, we tread more carefully (Julian Barnes Quotes) And no, it wasn’t shame I now felt, or guilt, but something rarer in my life and stronger than both: remorse. A feeling which is more complicated, curdled, and primeval. Whose chief characteristic is that nothing can be done about it: too much time has passed, too much damage has been done, for amends to be made (Julian Barnes Quotes) ... life is a gift bestowed without anyone asking for it; that the thinking person has a philosophical duty to examine both the nature of life and the conditions it comes with; and that if this person decides to renounce the gift no one asks for, it is the moral and human duty to act on the consequences of that decision (Julian Barnes Quotes) He had a better mind and a more rigorous temperament than me; he thought logically, and then acted on the conclusion of logical thought. Whereas most of us, I suspect, do the opposite: we make an instinctive decision, then build up an infrastructure of reasoning to justify it. And call the result common sense (Julian Barnes Quotes) When you read a great book, you don’t escape from life, you plunge deeper into it. There may be a superficial escape – into different countries, mores, speech patterns – but what you are essentially doing is furthering your understanding of life’s subtleties, paradoxes, joys, pains and truths. Reading and life are not separate but symbiotic (Julian Barnes Quotes) When you are in your twenties, even if you’re confused and uncertain about your aims and purposes, you have a strong sense of what life itself is, and of what you in life are, and might become. Later.. later there is more uncertainty, more overlapping, more backtracking, more false memories. Back then, you can remember your short life in its entirety. Later, the memory becomes a thing of shreds and patches (Julian Barnes Quotes) You put together two people who have not been put together before; and sometimes the world is changed, sometimes not. They may crash and burn, or burn and crash. But sometimes, something new is made, and then the world is changed. Together, in that first exaltation, that first roaring sense of uplift, they are greater than their two separate selves. Together, they see further, and they see more clearly (Julian Barnes Quotes) But then you begin to understand that the reward of merit is not life’s business (Julian Barnes Quotes) But life never lets you go, does it? You can’t put down life the way you put down a book (Julian Barnes Quotes)

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