Quotes from Julian Barnes

yet death has an obstinate way of denying us the solutions we imagine for ourselves.

Samo oni koji vide šta ?e se dogoditi prežive, mora da je to pravilo.

You realise how sympathy and antagonism can coexist.

Dingen die eenmaal weg zijn, kunnen niet teruggehaald worden, dat wist hij nu wel. Een klap, eenmaal uitgedeeld, kan niet worden ingetrokken. Woorden, eenmaal uitgesproken, kunnen niet onuitgesproken worden gemaakt. We mogen verdergaan alsof er niets verloren, niets gedaan, niets gezegd is, we mogen beweren het allemaal te vergeten, maar ons diepste wezen vergeet niet, omdat we voor altijd veranderd zijn.

So now, contented indifference before Middlesbrough against Slovan Bratislava coexisted with a craving for an art in which violent, overwhelming, hysterical and destructive emotion was the norm; an art which seeks, more obviously than any other form, to break your heart. Here was my new social realism.

Margaret used to say that there were two kinds of women: those with clear edges to them, and those who implied mystery.

If we had the choice, then there would be a question. But we don't, so there isn't. Who can control how much they love? If you can control it, then it isn't love. I don't know what you call it instead, but it isn't love.

Not over-interested in domestic matters, it was true; but then neither was he. In a novel, all his life's anxieties, his mixture of strength and weakness, his potential for hysteria--all would have been swirled away in a vortex of love leading to the blissful calm of marriage. But one of life's many disappointments was that it was never a novel, not by Maupassant or anyone else. Well, perhaps a short satirical tale by Gogol (p.38)

mayor sueño de la democracia consiste en elevar al proletariado hasta el nivel de estupidez de la burguesía», escribió Flaubert.

God damn it, he was thinking, this dying business is difficult. They just won't let you get on with it, not on your own terms, anyway. You have to die on other people's terms, and that's a bore, love them as you might.

nowadays, in the digital landscape, friends and followers have come to mean different, watered-down things. Many people know one another without knowing them at all. And are happy with that superficiality.

el problema de vivir más allá de tu mejor tiempo vital, más allá del punto en que la vida ya no reporta alegría, sino tan sólo desilusión y sucesos horribles.

Would you rather love the more, and suffer the more; or love the less and suffer the less?

Books say: She did this because. Life says: She did this. Books are where things are explained to you; life is where things aren't. I'm not surprised some people prefer books.

I have seen too many examples of lovers who, far from living in truth, dwelt in some fantasy land where self-delusion and self-aggrandizement reigned, with reality nowhere to be found.

Ya me lo dirá usted. Gustave desconfiaba de los sentimientos; le tenía miedo al amor; y elevó su neurosis a la categoría de credo artístico. La vanidad de Gustave no era únicamente literaria

This was hopeless. In a novel, Adrian wouldn't just have accepted things as they were put to him. What was the point of having a situation worthy of fiction if the protagonist didn't behave as he would have done in a book?

In the old days, a child might pay for the sins of the father, or indeed mother. Nowadays, in the most advanced society on earth, the parents might pay for the sins of the child, along with uncles, aunts, cousins, in-laws, colleagues, friends, and even the man who unthinkingly smiled at you as he came out of the lift at three in the morning. The system of retribution had been greatly improved, and was so much more inclusive than it used to be.

When asked What The Novel Does, I tend to answer, 'It tells beautiful, shapely lies which enclose hard, exact truths.

He died little more than a hundred years ago, and all that remains of him is paper. Paper, ideas, phrases, metaphors, structured prose which turns into sound.

But you cannot leave Susan. How could you bear to withdraw your love from her? If you didn't love her, who would? And maybe it is worse than this. It is not just that you love her, but that you are addicted to her. How ironic would that be?

cambio, es como un loro que salta de rama en rama y parlotea a la vista de todos.» Gustave se imaginaba que era una fiera salvaje: le encantaba pensar que era un oso polar, remoto, silvestre y solitario. Yo acepté esta idea suya, y hasta le dije que era un búfalo salvaje de las praderas americanas; pero es posible que no fuera más que un loro.

he thought he probably wouldn't have sex again before he died. Probably. Possibly. Unless. But on balance, he thought not. Sex involved two people. Two persons, first person and second person: you and I, you and me. But nowadays, the raucousness of the first person within him was stilled. It was as if he viewed, and lived, his life in the third person. Which allowed him to assess it more accurately, he believed.

Tek što do?emo na svet, rekao je Flober, ,,a ve? s nas po?nu da otpadaju komadi?i.