Quotessence
Home / Authors / Julian Barnes
Julian Barnes

Julian Barnes Quotes

Writer

Filter quotes by topic

AllIfsJulian BarnesWayLifeBookThe Only StoryArtLoveMayThinkingWritingMemoriesPeopleFirstsKnowsWorldGriefStoriesWellsAge

Famous Julian Barnes Quotes

“You can't have a novel without real, believable people, and once you get into either too theoretical a novel or too philosophical a novel, you get into the dangers that the French novel has discovered in the past 50 or 60 years. And you get into a sort of aridity. No, you have to have real, identifiable people to whom the reader reacts in a way as if they were real people.”

PeopleIfsWayYearsRealPastNovelDangerReaderPhilosophicalTheoreticalBelievable
Author:Julian Barnes
Create image

“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.”

IfsThinkingWorldWayYoungDiesRegretEasierImprovementIgnorantInsignificantImpatientBarbarismLamentOld YouOld TimeDeterioration
Book:Flaubert's Parrot
Create image

“He thought of trying to explain something he had recently noticed about himself: that if anyone insulted him, or one of his friends, he didn't really mind--or not much, anyway. Whereas if anyone insulted a novel, a story, a poem that he loved, something visceral and volcanic occurred within him. He wasn't sure what this might mean--except perhaps that he had got life and art mixed up, back to front, upside down.”

IfsTryingMindMeanArtStoriesMightNovelFrontsUpside DownInsultedVisceralInsulted Him
Author:Julian Barnes
Create image

“You would think, wouldn’t you, that if you were the child of a happy marriage, then you ought to have a better than average marriage yourself – either through some genetic inheritance or because you’d learnt from example? But it doesn’t seem to work like that. So perhaps you need the opposite example – to see mistakes in order not to make them yourself. Except this would mean that the best way for parents to ensure their children have happy marriages would be to have unhappy ones themselves. So what’s the answer?”

IfsThinkingWayNeedsMeanChildrenSeemsWould BeOrderParentAnswersMistakeExampleOughtOppositesAverageUnhappyBest WayInheritanceHappy Marriage
Author:Julian Barnes
Create image

“And if you had no tongue, no celebrating language, you’d do this: cross your hands at the wrist with palms facing towards you; place your crossed wrists over your heart (the middle of your chest, anyway); then move your hands outwards a short distance, and open them towards the object of your love. It’s just as eloquent as speech.”

IfsLoveHeartHandsAgeMovingLanguageMiddleObjectsSpeechCrossesDistanceTongueCelebrateChestsPalmsEloquentWrists
Author:Julian Barnes
Create image

“Does character develop over time? In novels, of course it does: otherwise there wouldn't be much of a story. But in life? I sometimes wonder. Our attitudes and opinions change, we develop new habits and eccentricities; but that's something different, more like decoration. Perhaps character resembles intelligence, except that character peaks a little later: between twenty and thirty, say. And after that, we're just stuck with what we've got. We're on our own. If so, that would explain a lot of lives, wouldn't it? And also - if this isn't too grand a word - our tragedy.”

IfsLittlesDoeDifferentSometimesCharacterStoriesCoursesAttitudeWonderOpinionNovelHabitTragedyTwentiesStuckThirtyDecorationEccentricityNew Habits
Author:Julian Barnes
Create image

“But I’ve been turning over in my mind the question of nostalgia, and whether I suffer from it. I certainly don’t get soggy at the memory of some childhood knickknack; nor do I want to deceive myself sentimentally about something that wasn’t even true at the time—love of the old school, and so on. But if nostalgia means the powerful recollection of strong emotions—and a regret that such feelings are no longer present in our lives—then I plead guilty.”

IfsWantMindMeanFeelingsSchoolSufferingStrongMemoriesPowerfulEmotionOur LivesChildhoodRegretNostalgiaGuiltyDeceivingRecollectionOld SchoolTime LoveStrong Emotions
Author:Julian Barnes
Create image

“In my terms, I settled for the realities of life, and submitted to its necessities: if this, then that, and so the years passed. In Adrian's terms, I gave up on life, gave up on examining it, took it as it came. And so, for the first time, I began to feel a more general remorse - a feeling somewhere between self-pity and self-hatred - about my whole life. All of it. I had lost the friends of my youth. I had lost the love of my wife. I had abandoned the ambitions I had entertained. I had wanted life not to bother me too much, and had succeeded - and how pitiful that was.”

IfsFeelsYearsFirstsSelfWholeFeelingsRealityWantedLostTermToo MuchWifeYouthAmbitionFirst TimeHatredMy WifeWhole LifePityBotherReality Of LifeAbandonedRemorseGave UpSelf PityExaminingSelf HatredPitiful
Author:Julian Barnes
Create image

“...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.”

IfsThinkingHumansPersonsLife IsAsksDecisionMoralConditionsDutyConsequencePhilosophicalAskingRenounceLife Is A GiftThinking Person
Book:The Sense of an Ending
Create image

“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.”

IfsMightRememberPurposeStrongMemoriesTwentiesAimUncertaintyConfusedUncertainPatchesShort LifeEntiretyOverlappingBacktracking
Author:Julian Barnes
Create image

“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.”

IfsFirstsMayArtSometimesStoriesForceLinesLevelsGriefLegsLove StoryFlatsCrashAspireSoarLandingRailwayLevels Of Life
Author:Julian Barnes
Create image

“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.”

IfsWorldStillsHandsSexGriefKnownHavensLuckyCrossesAbsolutesDivisionDividesUnluckyTropics
Book:Levels of Life
Create image