Quotes from Julian Barnes

Certe volte penso che lo scopo dell'esistenza sia quello di riconciliarci, per sfinimento, con la sua perdita finale, dimostrandoci che, indipendentemente dal tempo che ci vorrà, la vita non è affatto all'altezza della propria fama. da Il senso di una fine

The next day, all that stopped him from feeling pure exultance was the question: had it been too easy?

Now he could run an office—wherever, whenever—like any grooved old hacker. He kept his satisfactions to himself. And over the years he had also learned to see the point of money: what it could—and couldn't—do. There was another thing. It was a job below his qualifications. Not that he didn't take it seriously; he did. But since, professionally, he had now lowered his expectations, he found that he was rarely disappointed.

From The Noise of Time: What could be put up against the noise of time? Only that music which is inside ourselves--the music of our being--which is transformed by some into real music. Which, over the decades, if it is strong and true and pure enough to drown out the noise of time, is transformed into the whisper of history.

Ipak, ništa tako ne može da natera ljude da pametno misle kao dobra katastrofa.

Op het erf van de boerderij zag je soms de meest onwaarschijnlijke vormen van verbondenheid - de gans verliefd op de ezel, het katje veilig spelend tussen de poten van de vervaarlijke kettinghond. En op het erf van de mensheid bestonden vormen van verbondenheid die al even onwaarschijnlijk, en toch, voor de betrokkenen, nooit absurd waren.

He remembered, at school, being guided by masters through books and plays in which there was often a Conflict between Love and Duty. In those old stories, innocent but passionate love would run up against the duty owed to family, church, king, state. Some protagonists won, some lost, some did both at the same time; usually, tragedy ensued. No doubt in religious, patriarchal, hierarchical societies, such conflicts continued and still gave themes to writers.

Alice was surprised. In her worldview, everything was hopeless, but you just had to get on with it. And there wasn't much point changing what you believed at this late stage of the game.

Knygos tvirtina: ji padar? tai tod?l ir tod?l. Gyvenimas tvirtina: ji padar? tai. Tik knygose viskas paaiškinama, o gyvenime ni?niekas. Nesistebiu, kad kai kurie žmon?s teikia pirmenyb? knygoms. Knygos ?prasmina gyvenim?. Visa b?da, kad jos ?prasmina kit? žmoni? gyvenim?, bet ne tav?j?.

I replayed the words that would forever haunt me. As would Adrian's unfinished sentence: 'So, for instance, if Tony . . .' I knew I couldn't change, or mend, anything now.

I nodded to him with the authority of a young academic approving a peasant.

he didn't feel pity for Macleod, despite all the humiliations and infirmities visited upon him. These he regarded as inevitabilities; indeed, he nowadays regarded most things that happened as inevitabilities.

Vieni jausmai laik? pagreitina, kiti sul?tina, o kartais atrodo, kad jis dingsta - kol galop ateina akimirka, kai jis iš ties? dingsta ir jau niekada nebesugr?žta

It seems to me that when you are young, you think about sex most of the time, but you don't reflect on it much

Exhausted, emptied-out. I had no desire to tell Margaret about what had happened. I thought more often of Susie, and of the luck any parent has when a child is born with four limbs, a normal brain, and the emotional makeup that allows the child, the girl, the woman to lead any sort of life. May you be ordinary, as the poet once wished the newborn baby.

Frenchly, they set off with 1,300 litres of claret, fifty bottles of Pernod, and a mechanical piano.

What if Susan, from religious or moral scruple, had discouraged his interest, and taught him nothing more than tactical astuteness when playing mixed doubles? What if Macleod had continued to hold a sexual interest in his wife? None of this might have happened. But given that it had, then if you wanted to attribute fault, you were straight away into prehistory, which now, in two of their three cases, had become inaccessible.

I didn't doubt for a moment that she had read them all, or that they were the right books to own. Further, they seemed to be an organic combination of her mind and personality, whereas mine struck me as functionally separate, straining to describe a character I hoped to grow into.

Ma se nostalgia significa il ricordo potente di un'emozione forte, e il rimpianto di non ritrovare più sensazioni del genere nella vita, allora mi dichiaro colpevole. da Il senso di una fine

hace excavar una pequeña fosa para Gustave. Sorprendentemente, el niño sobrevive. Resulta ser un crío tardo, que se pasa tranquilamente horas y horas sentado con el dedo en la boca y una expresión «casi idiota» en el rostro. Para Sartre, es «el idiota de la familia». 1836 Comienza

I thought more often of Susie, and of the luck any parent has when a child is born with four limbs, a normal brain, and the emotional make-up that allows the child, the girl, the woman to lead any sort of life. May you be ordinary, as the poet once wished the new-born baby.

Don't ever have dogs, Paul. They die on you, and then there comes a point when you don't know whether to get one last one or not. One for the road. So here we are, Sibyl and me. Either I'll die and break her heart or she'll die and break mine. Not much of a choice, is

Learnt how to pass the time. That's one of the things about life. We're all just looking for a place of safety. And if you don't find one, then you have to learn how to pass the time.

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.