How rarely do our emotions meet the object they seem to deserve? How hopelessly we signal; how dark the sky; how big… — 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
Love may not lead where we think or hope, but regardless of outcome it should be a call to seriousness and truth.… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
This is what those who haven’t crossed the tropic of grief often fail to understand: the fact that someone is dead may… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
When we fall in love, we hope - both egotistically and altruistically - that we shall be finally, truly seen: judged and… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
The better you know someone, the less well you often see them (and the less well they can therefore be transferred into… — 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
We live on the flat, on the level, and yet - and so - we aspire. Groundlings, we can sometimes reach as… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
You put together two people who have not been put together before; and sometimes the world is changed, sometimes not. They may… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
Not merely hope, but any burdensome yearning: ambition, hatred, love (especially love) - how rarely do our emotions meet the object they… — 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… — Julian Barnes Copy Share Image
What is taken away is greater than the sum of what was there. This may not be mathematically possible; but it is… — 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
