Memories of childhood were the dreams that stayed with you after you woke. — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
Remember the botched brothel-visit in L’Education sentimentale and remember its lesson. Do not participate: happiness lies in the imagination, not the act.… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation. — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
Memory is identity…You are what you have done; what you have done is in your memory; what you remember defines who you… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
History isn't the lies of the victors, as I once glibly assured Old Joe Hunt; I know that now. It's more the… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
When you are in your twenties, even if you're confused and uncertain about your aims and purposes, you have a strong sense… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
I know this much: that there is objective time, but also subjective time, the kind you wear on the inside of your… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
We live with such easy assumptions, don't we? For instance, that memory equals events plus time. But it's all much odder than… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
What is history? Any thoughts, Webster?' 'History is the lies of the victors,' I replied, a little too quickly. 'Yes, I was… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
“When you are in your twenties, even if you're confused and uncertain about your aims and purposes, you have a strong sense… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
“Mariac tells us about the books he's read, the painters he's liked, the plays he's seen. He finds himself by looking in… — Julian Barnes Copy Share 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… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
“You put together two things that have not been put together before. And the world is changed. People may not notice at the time,… — Julian Barnes Copy Share
“I settled into a contented routine of working, spending my free time with Veronica and, back in my student room, wanking explosively to fantasies… — Julian Barnes Copy Share
The greatest patriotism is to tell your country when it is behaving dishonorably, foolishly, viciously. — Julian Barnes Copy Share
“There is only good vodka and very good vodka—there is no such thing as bad vodka.” — Julian Barnes Copy Share
Alice Munro can move characters through time in a way that no other writer can. — Julian Barnes Copy Share
How rarely do our emotions meet the object they seem to deserve? How hopelessly we signal; how dark the sky; how big the waves.… — Julian Barnes Copy Share
You put together two people who have not been put together before. Sometimes it is like that first attempt to harness a hydrogen balloon… — Julian Barnes Copy Share
“Also, when you are young, you think you can predict the likely pains and bleaknesses that age might bring. You imagine yourself being lonely,… — Julian Barnes Copy Share
“Why slum it where people were burdened by yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that? By history? Here, on the Island,… — Julian Barnes Copy Share
“In those years before mobile phones, email and Skype, travelers depended on the rudimentary communications system known as the postcard. Other methods--the long-distance phone… — Julian Barnes Copy Share
“My train was late, slowed by the usual Sunday engineering work. I got home in the early evening. I remember that I had a… — Julian Barnes Copy Share
“Indeed, isn’t the whole business of ascribing responsibility kind of a cop-out? We want to blame an individual so that everyone else is exculpated.… — Julian Barnes Copy Share
Some of the freckles I once loved are now closer to liver spots. But it’s still the eyes we look at, isn’t it? That’s… — Julian Barnes Copy Share
“And what percentage of people take up the option to die off?’ She looked at me, her glance telling me to be calm. ‘Oh,… — Julian Barnes Copy Share
