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Julian Barnes Quotes

Julian Barnes quotes about life

English Writer January 19, 1946

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Quotes

The more you learn, the less you fear. "Learn" not in the sense of academic study, but in the practical understanding of life. Julian Barnes
Novels tell us the most truth about life: what it is, how we live it, what it might be for, how we enjoy and value it, and how we lose it. Julian Barnes
Books say: she did this because. Life says: she did this. Books are where things are explained to you, life where things aren't. Julian Barnes
(on grief) And you do come out of it, that’s true. After a year, after five. But you don’t come out of it like a train coming out of a tunnel, bursting through the downs into sunshine and that swift, rattling descent to the Channel; you come out of it as a gull comes out of an oil-slick. You are tarred and feathered for life. Julian Barnes
Julian Barnes quote: "But then you begin to understand that the reward of merit is..."
But then you begin to understand that the reward of merit is not life’s business. Julian Barnes
Julian Barnes quote: "Life isn't just addition and subtraction. There's also the..."
Life isn't just addition and subtraction. There's also the accumulation, the multiplication, of loss, of failure. Julian Barnes
I remember laughing with relief that the same old adolescent boredom goes on from generation to generation. ...the words took me back to my own years of stagnancy, and that terrible waiting for life to begin. [p. 68] Julian Barnes
Sometimes I think the purpose of life is to reconcile us to its eventual loss by wearing us down, by proving, however long it takes, that life isn't all it's cracked up to be. Julian Barnes
Julian Barnes quote: "This was another of our fears: that Life wouldn't turn out to..."
This was another of our fears: that Life wouldn't turn out to be like Literature. Julian Barnes
How often do we tell our own life story? How often do we adjust, embellish, make sly cuts? And the longer life goes on, the fewer are those around to challenge our account, to remind us that our life is not our life, merely the story we have told about our life. Told to others, but—mainly—to ourselves. Julian Barnes
Julian Barnes quote: "Life seemed even more of a guessing game than usual."
Life seemed even more of a guessing game than usual. Julian Barnes
Julian Barnes quote: "I suppose the truth is that, yes, I'm not odd enough not to..."
I suppose the truth is that, yes, I'm not odd enough not to have done the things I've ended up doing with my life. Julian Barnes
When I was still quite young I had a complete presentiment of life. It was like the nauseating smell of cooking escaping from a ventilator: you don't have to have eaten it to know that it would make you throw up. Julian Barnes
I had wanted life not to bother me too much, and had succeeded - and how pitiful that was. - Tony Webster in The Sense of an Ending Julian Barnes
Young, middle-aged, elderly, old, dead: this was how life conjugated. (No, life was a noun, so this is how life declined. Yes, that was better in any case, life declined. Julian Barnes

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