Because love is the meeting point of truth and magic. Truth, as in photography; magic, as in ballooning.
Julian BarnesWhen 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 BarnesA pier is a disappointed bridge; yet stare at it for long enough and you can dream it to the other side of the Channel.
Julian BarnesIt took me some years to clear my head of what Paris wanted me to admire about it, and to notice what I preferred instead. Not power-ridden monuments, but individual buildings which tell a quieter story: the artist's studio, or the Belle Epoque house built by a forgotten financier for a just-remembered courtesan.
Julian Barnes