When I was still quite young I had a complete presentiment of life. It was like the nauseating smell of cooking escaping… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
“I would have to go back into my past and deal with Adrian. My philosopher friend, who gazed on life and decided… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
“Books say: she did this because. Life says: she did this. Books are where things are explained to you; life is where… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
“how weird it would be to have around you only as many books as you have time to read in the rest… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
“What did I know of life, I who had lived so carefully? Who had neither won nor lost, but just let life… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
“For me, death is the one appalling fact which defines life; unless you are constantly aware of it, you cannot begin to… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
“Is there anything more plausible than a second hand? And yet it takes only the smallest pleasure or pain to teach us… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
Sometimes I think the purpose of life is to reconcile us to its eventual loss by wearing us down, by proving, however… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
Early in life, the world divides crudely into those who have had sex and those who haven't. Later, into those who have… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
“For most of us, the first experience of love, even if it doesn’t work out – perhaps especially when it doesn’t work… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
“The law, and society, and religion all said it was impossible to be sane, healthy, and kill yourself. Perhaps those authorities feared… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
But life never lets you go, does it? You can't put down life the way you put down a book. — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
This was another of our fears: that Life wouldn't turn out to be like Literature. — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
“I wish life was like banking,' I said. 'I don't mean it's straightforward. Some of it's incredibly complicated. But you can understand… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
Books say: She did this because. Life says: She did this. Books are where things are explained to you; life is where… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
I had wanted life not to bother me too much, and had succeeded - and how pitiful that was. — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
Later on in life, you expect a bit of rest, don't you? You think you deserve it. I did, anyway. But then… — 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
