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Literature Quotes by Julian Barnes

11 Literature quotes by Julian Barnes

All Literature quotes Julian Barnes’s page

If you’re curious about how a seasoned novelist thinks about books, this short set gives you a taste. The selections capture Barnes’s wry observations and affection for the written word, making it a handy primer for anyone wanting a quick literary sip.

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In an oppressive society the truth-telling nature of literature is of a different order, and sometimes valued more highly than other elements…

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Well, they each seem to do one thing well enough, but fail to realize that literature depends on doing several things well…

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“This was another of our fears: that Life wouldn't turn out to be like Literature. Look at our parents- were they the…

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“Of course, there were other sorts of literature -- theoretical, self-referencial, lachrymosely autobiographical -- but they were just dry wanks.”

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[Literature is] a process of producing grand, beautiful, well-ordered lies that tell more truth than any assemblage of facts.

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This was another of our fears: that Life wouldn't turn out to be like Literature.

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“It's the best way of telling the truth; it's a process of producing grand, beautiful, well-ordered lies that tell more truth than…

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“Is there anything more plausible than a second hand? And yet it takes only the smallest pleasure or pain to teach us…

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Great books are readable anyway. Dickens is readable. Jane Austen is readable. John Updike's readable. Hawthorne's readable. It's a meaningless term. You…

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“[Literature is] the best way of telling the truth; it’s a process of producing grand, beautiful, well-ordered lies that tell more truth…

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“This was another of our fears: that Life wouldn't turn out to be like Literature. Look at our parents--were they the stuff…

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More by Julian Barnes

“You put together two things that have not been put together before. And the world is changed. People may not notice at the time,…

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“I settled into a contented routine of working, spending my free time with Veronica and, back in my student room, wanking explosively to fantasies…

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The greatest patriotism is to tell your country when it is behaving dishonorably, foolishly, viciously.

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“There is only good vodka and very good vodka—there is no such thing as bad vodka.”

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Alice Munro can move characters through time in a way that no other writer can.

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How rarely do our emotions meet the object they seem to deserve? How hopelessly we signal; how dark the sky; how big the waves.…

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You put together two people who have not been put together before. Sometimes it is like that first attempt to harness a hydrogen balloon…

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“Also, when you are young, you think you can predict the likely pains and bleaknesses that age might bring. You imagine yourself being lonely,…

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“Why slum it where people were burdened by yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that? By history? Here, on the Island,…

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“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…

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“My train was late, slowed by the usual Sunday engineering work. I got home in the early evening. I remember that I had a…

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In life, every ending is just the start of another story.

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“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.…

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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…

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“And what percentage of people take up the option to die off?’ She looked at me, her glance telling me to be calm. ‘Oh,…

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