Home / Authors / Julian Barnes

Julian Barnes Quotes

Writer

Julian Barnes, born on January 19, 1946, is a distinguished British writer. His works span across various genres including novels, essays, and criticism, known for their unique literary style and profound insights into human nature.

Filter quotes by topic

All Ifs Julian Barnes Way Life Book The Only Story Art Love May Thinking Writing Memories People Firsts Knows World Grief Stories Wells Age

Famous Julian Barnes Quotes

“Throw off your grief,' doubters imply, 'and we can all go back to pretending death doesn't exist, or at least is comfortably far away.”

Death Grief Survival Mourning Pretending Coping

Book:Levels of Life

Source: Levels of Life

“The final tormenting, unanswerable question: what is 'success' in mourning?”

Death Grief Mourning

Book:Levels of Life

Source: Levels of Life

“Grief reconfigures time, its length, its texture, its function: one day means no more than the next, so why have they been picked out and given separate names?”

Mean Next Names Given Grief One Day Function Length Texture

Author:Julian Barnes

“(on grief) And you do come out of it, that’s true. After a year, after five. But you don’t come out of it like a train coming out of a tunnel, bursting through the downs into sunshine and that swift, rattling descent to the Channel; you come out of it as a gull comes out of an oil-slick. You are tarred and feathered for life.”

Years Grief Five Train Oil Sunshine Coming Out Tunnels Descent Bursting Slick Gulls

Book:Flaubert's Parrot

Source: Flaubert's Parrot

“We live on the flat, on the level, and yet - and so - we aspire. Groundlings, we can sometimes reach as far as the gods. Some soar with art, others with religion; most with love. But when we soar, we can also crash. There are few soft landings. We may find ourselves bouncing across the ground with leg-fracting force, dragged towards some foreign railway line. Every love story is a potential grief story. If not at first, then later. If not for one, then for the other. Sometimes, for both.”

Ifs Firsts May Art Sometimes Stories Force Lines Levels Grief Legs Love Story Flats Crash Aspire Soar Landing Railway Levels Of Life

Author:Julian Barnes

“Every love story is a potential grief story.”

Stories Grief Love Story Levels Of Life

Author:Julian Barnes

“He always thought that Touie's long illness would somehow prepare him for her death. He always imagined that grief anf guilt, if they followed, would be more clear-edged, more defined, more finite. Instead they seem like weather, like clouds constantly re-forming into new shapes, blown by nameless, unidentifiable winds.”

Ifs Long Seems Would Be Grief Clear Wind Shapes Guilt Clouds Illness Weather Defined Finite Nameless

Author:Julian Barnes

“This is what those who haven’t crossed the tropic of grief often fail to understand: the fact that someone is dead may mean that they are not alive, but doesn’t mean that they do not exist.”

May Mean Facts Grief Alive Failing Havens

Book:Levels of Life

Source: Levels of Life

“Early in life, the world divides crudely into those who have had sex and those who haven't. Later, into those who have known love, and those who haven't. Later still - at least, if we are lucky (or, on the other hand, unlucky) - it divides into those who have endured grief, and those who haven't. These divisions are absolute; they are tropics we cross.”

Ifs World Stills Hands Sex Grief Known Havens Lucky Crosses Absolutes Division Divides Unlucky Tropics

Book:Levels of Life

Source: Levels of Life

“Grief seems at first to destroy not just all patterns, but also to destroy a belief that a pattern exists.”

Firsts Seems Belief Grief Patterns

Author:Julian Barnes

“I was initially planning to write about grief in terms of Eurydice and the myth thereof. By that point the overall metaphor of height and depth and flat and falling and rising was coming into being in my mind.”

Writing Mind Fall Term Grief Depth Metaphor Myth Planning Height Rising Flats

Author:Julian Barnes

About the Author

Born: January 19, 1946
Known for: Writer
Quotes: 316

Books & Sources

The Sense of an EndingRelated source material

Flaubert's ParrotRelated source material

The Only StoryRelated source material

Levels of LifeRelated source material

The Noise of TimeRelated source material

Conversations with Julian BarnesRelated source material

A History of the World in 10½ ChaptersRelated source material

A History Of The World In 10 1/2 ChaptersRelated source material

Talking It OverRelated source material

England, EnglandRelated source material

Similar Authors

Paul AusterBrowse related quotes
George SaundersBrowse related quotes
Stephen KingBrowse related quotes
Joyce Carol OatesBrowse related quotes
Neil GaimanBrowse related quotes
Salman RushdieBrowse related quotes
Jeanette WintersonBrowse related quotes
Anna QuindlenBrowse related quotes
Flannery O'ConnorBrowse related quotes
Margaret AtwoodBrowse related quotes