The best life for a writer is the life which helps him write the best books he can. — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
When you read a great book, you don't escape from life, you plunge deeper into it. — 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
Books are where things are explained to you; life is where things aren't. — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
But then you begin to understand that the reward of merit is not life’s business. — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
“Life versus Death becomes, as Montaigne pointed out, Old Age versus Death. ” — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
“When he's cheerful his tongue runs away with him, and he's depressed he can be unkind. So it's common sense not to… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
“There is the question of accumulation (...) just the simple adding up and adding on of life. And as the poet pointed… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
“This was another of our fears: that Life wouldn't turn out to be like Literature. Look at our parents- were they the… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
“What was the point of having a situation worthy of fiction if the protagonist didn't behave as he would have done in… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
“Young, middle-aged, elderly, old, dead: this was how life conjugated. (No, life was a noun, so this is how life declined. Yes,… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
The more you learn, the less you fear. "Learn" not in the sense of academic study, but in the practical understanding of… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
Had my life increased, or merely added to itself? There had been addition and subtraction in my life, but how much multiplication? — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
“I think that in life you have to discover what you're good at, recognise what you can't do, decide what you want,… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
I have at times tried to imagine the despair which leads to suicide, attempted to conjure up the slew and slop of… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
When you read a great book, you don’t escape from life, you plunge deeper into it. There may be a superficial escape… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
“Most of us have only one story to tell. I don’t mean that only one thing happens to us in our lives:… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
“Try as I could -which wasn't very hard- I rarely ended up fantasising a markedly different life from the one that has… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
“Because just as all political and historical change sooner or later disappoints, so does adulthood. So does life. Sometimes I think the… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
“Oliver used to have a theory he called Love, etc.: in other words the world divides into people for whom love is… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
“Who was it said that memory is what we thought we'd forgotten? And it ought to be obvious to us that time… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
You get towards the end of life - no, not life itself, but of something else: the end of any likelihood of… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
He thought of trying to explain something he had recently noticed about himself: that if anyone insulted him, or one of his… — 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
Back then, things were plainer: less money, no electronic devices, little fashion tyranny, no girlfriends. There was nothing to distract us from… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
“Our lack of originality is something we usefully forget as we hunch over our—to us—ever-fascinating lives. My friend M., leaving his wife… — 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
“Back then, things were plainer: less money, no electronic devices, little fashion tyranny, no girlfriends. There was nothing to distract us from… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
“You put money on a horse, it wins, and your winnings go on to the next horse in the next race, and… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
“Someone once said that his favourite times in history were when things were collapsing, because that meant something new was being born.… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
“In the letter he left for the coroner he had explained his reasoning (for suicide): that life is a gift bestowed without… — 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
“5.4 The question of accumulation. If life is a wager, what form does it take? At the racetrack, an accumulator is a… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
“And what percentage of people take up the option to die off?’ She looked at me, her glance telling me to be… — 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
“Life was the cat that dragged the parrot downstairs by its tail; his head banged against every step.” — 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 Image
“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 Image
The greatest patriotism is to tell your country when it is behaving dishonorably, foolishly, viciously. — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
“There is only good vodka and very good vodka—there is no such thing as bad vodka.” — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
Alice Munro can move characters through time in a way that no other writer can. — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
![“Who was it said that memory is what we thought we'd forgotten? And it ought to be obvious to us that time doesn't act as a fixative, rather as a solvent. But it's not convenient--it's not useful--to believe this; it doesn't help us get on with our lives; so we ignore it. [p. 69]” quote by Julian Barnes](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/90c/julian-barnes-522_life_who-was-it-said-that-memory-is-what-we-t_368829.jpg)
