“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.” KnowsWantDoeSelfInterestWorstCuriosityTireSelf InterestHurdlePerversion Book:Flaubert's Parrot Source: Flaubert's Parrot
“Did you know that there is no exact rhyme in the Russian language for the word 'pravda'? Ponder and weigh this insufficiency in your mind. Doesn't that just echo down the canyons of your soul?” KnowsMindSoulLanguageYour SoulEchoesRhymePonderingDid You KnowCanyonsInsufficiencyRussian Language Author:Julian Barnes
“If these are indeed the spirits of Englishmen and Englishwomen who have passed over into the next world, surely they would know how to form a proper queue?” IfsKnowsWorldFormSpiritNextKnow HowEnglishmenQueues Author:Julian Barnes
“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.” PeopleKnowsWantRealSometimesSecretDistinctionMiceSkeletonsSigns Of Love Book:Flaubert's Parrot Source: Flaubert's Parrot
“When I was still quite young I had a complete presentiment of life. It was like the nauseating smell of cooking escaping from a ventilator: you don't have to have eaten it to know that it would make you throw up.” KnowsStillsYoungCookingSmellEscaping Book:Flaubert's Parrot Source: Flaubert's Parrot
“The better you know someone, the less well you often see them (and the less well they can therefore be transferred into fiction). They may be so close as to be out of focus, and there is no operating novelist to dispel the blur.” KnowsWellsMayFictionFocusNovelistsBlur Book:Nothing To Be Frightened Of Source: Nothing To Be Frightened Of
“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.” KnowsNeedsFactsProblemOrderFrontsObjectivesVersionsInterpretationHistorianVersusSubjective Author:Julian Barnes
“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.” KnowsLyingMemoriesSurvivorDefeatedHuntsAssured Book:The Sense of an Ending Source: The Sense of an Ending
“I know this much: that there is objective time, but also subjective time, the kind you wear on the inside of your wrist, next to where the pulse lies. And this personal time, which is the true time, is measured in your relationship to memory.” KnowsKindLyingNextMemoriesObjectivesSubjectivePulseWristsPersonal Time Author:Julian Barnes
“...God knows you can have complication and difficulty without any compensating depth or seriousness” KnowsDifficultyDepthGod KnowsSeriousnessComplication Author:Julian Barnes
“In those days, we imagined ourselves as being kept in some kind of holding pen, waiting to be released into our lives. And when the moment came, our lives -- and time itself -- would speed up. How were we to know that our lives had in any case begun, that some advantage had already been gained, some damage already inflicted? Also, that our release would only be into a larger holding pen, whose boundaries would be at first undiscernible.” KnowsFirstsKindMomentsWould BeWaitingCasesOur LivesAdvantageSpeedBoundariesReleaseDamagePensLife And Time Author:Julian Barnes
“There is a German word, Sehnsucht, which has no English equivalent; it means 'the longing for something'. It has Romantic and mystical connotations; C.S. Lewis defined it as the 'inconsolable longing' in the human heart for 'we know not what'. It seems rather German to be able to specify the unspecifiable. The longing for something - or, in our case, for someone.” KnowsHumansHeartMeanSeemsAbleCasesLongingDefinedMysticalHuman HeartConnotation Author:Julian Barnes
