Back then, things were plainer: less money, no electronic devices, little fashion tyranny, no girlfriends. There was nothing to distract us from our human and filial duty which was to study, pass exams, use those qualifications to find a job, and then put together a way of life unthreateningly fuller than that of our parents, who would approve, while privately comparing it to their own earlier lives, which had been simpler, and therefore superior.
Julian BarnesYou lose the world for a glance? Of course you do. That is what the world is for: to lose under the right circunstances.
Julian BarnesPeople in love, it is well known, suffer extreme conceptual delusions, the most common of these being that other people find your condition as thrilling and eye-watering as you do yourselves.
Julian BarnesDo not imagine that Art is something which is designed to give gentle uplift and self-confidence . Art is not a brassiere. At least, not in the English sense. But do not forget that brassiere is the French word for life-jacket.
Julian BarnesPride makes us long for a solution to things ā a solution, a purpose, a final cause; but the better telescopes become, the more stars appear.
Julian BarnesPoets seem to write more easily about love than prose writers. For a start, they own that flexible āIāā¦. Then again, poets seem able to turn bad love ā selfish, shitty love ā into good love poetry. Prose writers lack this power of admirable, dishonest transformation. We can only turn bad love into prose about bad love. So we are envious (and slightly distrustful) when poets talk to us of love.
Julian Barnes