“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
“I suppose the truth is that, yes, I'm not odd enough not to have done the things I've ended up doing with… — 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
Discovering, for example, that as witnesses to your life diminish, there is less corroboration, and therefore less certainty, as to what you… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
“He died a modern death, in hospital,…after medical science had prolonged his life to a point where the terms on which it… — julian barnes Copy Share Image
The writer's life [is] full of frailty and defeat like any other life. What counts is the work. Yet the work can… — 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
Reading and life are not separate but symbiotic. And for this serious task of imaginative discovery and self-discovery, there is and remains… — 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
“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
“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
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
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
“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
How often do we tell our own life story? How often do we adjust, embellish, make sly cuts? And the longer life… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
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
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
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
“Does character develop over time? In novels, of course it does:otherwise there wouldn't be much of a story. But in life? I… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
“Better to take life seriously, and reach for light solutions. Satire, for instance; or suicide. Why did people hold so fast to… — 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
“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
When you're young - when I was young - you want your emotions to be like the ones you read about in… — 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
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
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
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
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
“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
“Life was the cat that dragged the parrot downstairs by its tail; his head banged against every step.” — 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
“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
I remember laughing with relief that the same old adolescent boredom goes on from generation to generation. ...the words took me back… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
And that's a life, isn't it? Some achievements and some disappointments. It's been interesting to me, though I wouldn't complain or be… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
...life is a gift bestowed without anyone asking for it; that the thinking person has a philosophical duty to examine both the… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
“Memory is identity. I have believed this since – oh, since I can remember. You are what you have done; what you… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
“Is despair wrong? Isn’t it the natural condition of life after a certain age? … After a number of events, what is… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
Life … is a bit like reading. … If all your responses to a book have already been duplicated and expanded upon… — 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
![“Discovering, for example, that as witnesses to your life diminish, there is less corroboration, and therefore less certainty, as to what you are or have been. [p. 65]” quote by Julian Barnes](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/b09/julian-barnes-522_certainty_discovering-for-example-that-as-witnesse_2054696.png)
![“The writer's life [is] full of frailty and defeat like any other life. What counts is the work. Yet the work can quite easily be buried, or half-buried, by the life.” quote by Julian Barnes](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/176/julian-barnes-522_buried_the-writer-s-life-is-full-of-frailty-and_181140.png)
![“I remember laughing with relief that the same old adolescent boredom goes on from generation to generation. ...the words took me back to my own years of stagnancy, and that terrible waiting for life to begin. [p. 68]” quote by Julian Barnes](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/4bf/julian-barnes-522_boredom_i-remember-laughing-with-relief-that-the_1227862.png)
![“And that's a life, isn't it? Some achievements and some disappointments. It's been interesting to me, though I wouldn't complain or be amazed if others found it less so. Maybe, in a way, Adrian knew what he was doing. Not that I would have missed my own life for anything, you understand. [pp.60-61]” quote by Julian Barnes](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/aa8/julian-barnes-522_achievement_and-that-s-a-life-isn-t-it-some-achievem_983377.png)
