There's nothing wrong with being a genius who can fascinate the young. Rather, there's something wrong with the young who can't be fascinated by a genius.
Julian BarnesThis is what those who havenโt crossed the tropic of grief often fail to understand: the fact that someone is dead may mean that they are not alive, but doesnโt mean that they do not exist.
Julian BarnesIt's easy, after all, not to be a writer. Most people aren't writers, and very little harm comes to them.
Julian BarnesI have at times tried to imagine the despair which leads to suicide, attempted to conjure up the slew and slop of darkness in which only death appears as a pinprick of light: in other words, the exact opposite of the normal condition of life.
Julian BarnesGreat books are readable anyway. Dickens is readable. Jane Austen is readable. John Updike's readable. Hawthorne's readable. It's a meaningless term. You have to go the very extremes of literature, like Joyce's "Finnegan's Wake," before you get a literary work that literally unreadable.
Julian Barnes