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Most people, in my opinion, steal much of what they are. If they didn't what poor items they would be.
Julian Barnes
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Julian Barnes
Age: 78
Born: 1946
Born: January 19
Essayist
Journalist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Science Fiction Writer
Translator
Writer
Leicester
England
J. Barnes
J Barnes
Edward Pygge
Julian Patrick Barnes
Much
Would
People
Items
Steal
Stealing
Opinion
Poor
Didn
More quotes by Julian Barnes
I thought of the things that had happened to me over the years, and of how little I had made happen.
Julian Barnes
Grief reconfigures time, its length, its texture, its function: one day means no more than the next, so why have they been picked out and given separate names?
Julian Barnes
How rarely do our emotions meet the object they seem to deserve? How hopelessly we signal how dark the sky how big the waves. We are all lost at sea, washed between hope and despair, hailing something that may never come to rescue us.
Julian Barnes
I am death-fearing. I don't think I'm morbid. That seems to me a fear of death that goes beyond the rational. Whereas it seems to me to be entirely rational to fear death!
Julian Barnes
Books are where things are explained to you life is where things aren't.
Julian Barnes
May you be ordinary, as the poet once wished the new-born baby.
Julian Barnes
To be stupid, and selfish, and to have good health are the three requirements for happiness.
Julian Barnes
Life seemed even more of a guessing game than usual.
Julian Barnes
The companionship of dead writers is a wonderful form of live friendship.
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
(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
But life never lets you go, does it? You can't put down life the way you put down a book.
Julian Barnes
To own a certain book - and to choose it without help - is to define yourself.
Julian Barnes
If you remember your past too well you start blaming your present for it. Look what they did to me, that's what caused me to be like this, it's not my fault. Permit me to correct you: it probably is your fault. And kindly spare me the details.
Julian Barnes
We thought we were being mature when we were only being safe. We imagined we were being responsible but were only being cowardly. What we called realism turned out to be a way of avoiding things rather than facing them.
Julian Barnes
In life, every ending is just the start of another story.
Julian Barnes
The best form of government is one that is dying, because that means it’s giving way to something else.
Julian Barnes
The best life for a writer is the life which helps him write the best books he can.
Julian Barnes
Do 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 Barnes
Paris is certainly one of the most boastful of cities, and you could argue that it has had a lot to boast about: at various times the European centre of power, of civilisation, of the arts, and (self-advertisingly, at least) of love.
Julian Barnes
