“I don't ever want to get old. Spare me that. Have you the power? No, even you don't have the power, alas.” — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
You grew old first not in your own eyes, but in other people's eyes; then, slowly, you agreed with their opinion of… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
“... forty's nothing, at fifty you're in your prime, sixty's the new forty, and so on.” — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
“There's something wrong with the young who can't be fascinated by a genius.” — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
“Games are for childhood, and sometimes I think I lost my childhood young.” — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
Perhaps the world progresses not by maturing, but by being in a permanent state of adolescence, of thrilled discovery. — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
Most of us remember adolescence as a kind of double negative: no longer allowed to be children, we are not yet capable… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
It strikes me that this may be one of the differences between youth and age: when we are young, we invent different… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
Was it the case that colours dimmed as the eye grew elderly? Or was it rather that in youth your excitement about… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
When you are young, you think that the old lament the deterioration of life because this makes it easier for them to… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
“For some people, the time differentials established in youth never really disappear: the elder remains the elder, even when both are dribbling… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
In my terms, I settled for the realities of life, and submitted to its necessities: if this, then that, and so the… — 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
