Quotes from Julian Barnes

What he didn't – or couldn't – tell Joan was his terrifying discovery that love, by some ruthless, almost chemical process, could resolve itself into pity and anger.

Sad sex is the saddest sex of all.

He did not want to make himself into a dramatic character. But sometimes, as his mind skittered in the small hours, he thought: so this is what history has come to. All that striving and idealism and hope and progress and science and art and conscience, and it all ends like this, with a man standing by a lift, at his feet a small case containing cigarettes, underwear and tooth powder; standing there and waiting to be taken away.

Good sex is better than bad sex. Bad sex is better than no sex, except when no sex is better than bad sex. Self-sex is better than no sex, except when no sex is better than self-sex. Sad sex is always far worse than good sex, bad sex, self-sex and no sex. Sad sex is the saddest sex of all.

A fi rus însemna a fi pesimist; a fi sovietic însemna a fi optimist. De aceea cuvintele <> erau o contradicÈ›ie de termeni. Puterea nu înÈ›elesese niciodat? acest lucru. Ea credea c? dac? ucideai o bun? parte a populaÈ›iei, iar pentru restul instaurai un regim de propagand? È™i teroare, obÈ›ineai optimism.

Chi poteva sapere come l'avrebbe pensata, il futuro? Ci aspettiamo troppo dal domani, sperando che sappia contrastare l'oggi.

And perhaps I I didn't even understand the young when I was young. That could be true too.

Professional critics] act as if Flaubert, or Milton, or Wordsworth were some tedious old aunt in a rocking chair, who smelt of stale powder, was only interested in the past, and hadn't said anything new for years. Of course, it's her house, and everybody is living in it rent free, but even so, surely it is, well, you know… time?

Well, in one sense, I can't know what it is that I don't know. That's philosophically selfevident." He left one of those slight pauses in which we again wondered if he was engaged in subtle mockery or a high seriousness beyond the rest of us.

From what I did and what I said Let them not seek to find who I was

L'arte appartiene a tutti e a nessuno. L'arte appartiene a tutti i tempi e a nessun tempo in particolare. L'arte appartiene a chi la produce e a chi l'assapora. L'arte non appartiene più al Popolo e al Partito di quanto una volta non appartenesse all'aristocrazia e ai mecenati. L'arte è il mormorio della storia, udibile al di là del rumore del tempo. L'arte non esiste per sé: esiste per il pubblico.

Lenin g?sea muzica deprimant?. Stalin credea c? înÈ›elege È™i apreciaz? muzica. HruÈ™ciov dispreÈ›uia muzica. Ce e mai r?u pentru un compozitor?

Arthur, my dear," she interrupts. "There is something I wish to talk about." He looks surprised, and slightly alarmed. If he has always valued her directness, there is a residual suspicion within him that whenever a woman says something must be talked about, it is rarely something to a man's comfort or advantage.

Nowadays, at the other end of life, I have a rule of thumb about whether or not two people are having an affair: if you think they might be, then they definitely are.

But people don't on the whole fart raucously in Mozart [concerts]. So I suppose a few vestiges of the thin crust of civilization which prevents our descent into utter barbarism are just about holding. ~Vigilance, by Julian Barnes

When we are young, we invent different futures for ourselves; when we are old, we invent different pasts for others.

He became nervous, things blurred in his mind, and he would sometimes make a decision simply in order to have the matter settled rather than because he knew what he wanted.

I hope you never get there yourself—but some of us get to the point in life where we realise that nothing matters. Nothing fucking matters. And one of the few side benefits of that is you know you're not going to go to hell for filling in the wrong answers in the crossword. Because you've been to hell and back already and you know all too well what it's like.

Which ones I was not sure, only that passion and danger, ecstasy and despair (but then more ecstasy) would be in attendance. However Ã¢â'¬Â¦ who said that thing about "the littleness of life that art exaggerates"? There was a moment in my late twenties when I admitted that my adventurousness had long since petered out. I would never do those things adolescence had dreamt about. Instead, I mowed my lawn, I took holidays, I had my life.

First love fixes a life forever: this much I have discovered over the years. It may not outrank subsequent loves, but they will always be affected by its existence. It may serve as model, or as counterexample. It may overshadow subsequent loves; on the other hand, it can make them easier, better. Though sometimes, first love cauterises the heart, and all any searcher will find thereafter is scar tissue.

His life had not been wrecked. His heart, yes, his heart had been cauterised. But he had found a way to live, and continued with that life, which had brought him to here. And from here, he had a duty to see himself as he had once been. Strange how, when you are young, you owe no duty to the future; but when you are old, you owe a duty to the past. To the one thing you can't change.

Memory sorts and sifts according to the demands made on it by the rememberer.

don't believe in destiny, as I may have said. But I do believe now that when two lovers meet, there is already so much prehistory that only certain outcomes are possible.

They grow up so quickly, don't they?" when all you really mean is: time goes faster for me nowadays. Margaret's