Julian Barnes

“You can deal with the brain, as I say; it looks sensible, whereas the heart, the human heart, I'm afraid, looks a…

— Julian Barnes

“...how time first grounds us and then confounds us....give us enough time and our best-supported decisions will seem wobbly, our certainties whimsical.”

— Julian Barnes

“Naturalness onstage is just as much an artifice as naturalism in the novel”

— Julian Barnes

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

Time...give us enough time and our best-supported decisions will seem wobbly, our certainties whimsical.

— Julian Barnes

Why does the writing make us chase the writer? Why can't we leave well enough alone? Why aren't the books enough?

— Julian Barnes

The land of embarrassment and breakfast.

— Julian Barnes

“historians need to treat a participant’s own explanation of events with a certain scepticism. It is often the statement made with an…

— Julian Barnes

“A facetious if logical question comes into George's mind, from where he cannot tell, unless as a reaction to all this unwonted…

— Julian Barnes

The writer has little control over personal temperament, none over historical moment, and is only partly in charge of his or her…

— Julian Barnes

“So a)To what extent might human relationships be expressed in a mathematical or logical formula? And b) If so, what signs might…

— Julian Barnes

“No sooner do we come into this world, than bits of us start to fall off.”

— Julian Barnes

“It took a while, but I remember the moment – or rather, the suddenly arriving argument – which made it less likely…

— Julian Barnes

“Books say: She did this because. Life says: She did this. Books are where things are explained to you; life is where…

— Julian Barnes

“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

Was it the case that colours dimmed as the eye grew elderly? Or was it rather that in youth your excitement about…

— Julian Barnes

“Back then, things were plainer: less money, no electronic devices, little fashion tyranny, no girlfriends. There was nothing to distract us from…

— Julian Barnes

“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

“Louise Colet was a proto-feminist who committed the sin of wanting to make someone else happy.”

— Julian Barnes

“Oliver used to have a theory he called Love, etc.: in other words the world divides into people for whom love is…

— Julian Barnes

“He thought logically, and then acted on the conclusion of logical thought. Whereas most of us, I suspect, do the opposite: we…

— Julian Barnes

To look at ourselves from afar, to make the subjective suddenly objective: this gives us a psychic shock.

— Julian Barnes

Remember the botched brothel-visit in L’Education sentimentale and remember its lesson. Do not participate: happiness lies in the imagination, not the act.…

— Julian Barnes

“You put money on a horse, it wins, and your winnings go on to the next horse in the next race, and…

— Julian Barnes

“There is violence in this supposedly tender heart of mine.”

— Julian Barnes