Quotes by : Julian Barnes

Books say: She did this because. Life says: She did this. Books are where things are explained to you....

Well, they each seem to do one thing well enough, but fail to realize that literature depends on doing....

His air of failure had nothing desperate about it; rather, it seemed to stem from an unresented realisation....

What does the novel do? It tells beautiful, shapely lies which enclose hard, exact truths.

The greatest patriotism is to tell your country when it is behaving dishonorably, foolishly, viciously.....

And yet it takes only the smallest pleasure or pain to teach us time’s malleability.

Later on in life, you expect a bit of rest, don't you? You think you deserve it. I did, anyway. But then....

Reading is a majority skill but a minority art.

Cut privet still smells of sour apples, as it did when I was sixteen; but this is a rare, lingering exception.....

I know this much: that there is objective time, but also subjective time, the kind you wear on the inside....