Quote

The companionship of dead writers is a wonderful form of live friendship.

Julian Barnes

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Companionship
Writers
Friendship
Dead
Wonderful
Form
Live

More quotes by Julian Barnes

Image
Global warming is more of a blessing than a curse.
Julian Barnes
Image
Life isn't just addition and subtraction. There's also the accumulation, the multiplication, of loss, of failure.
Julian Barnes
Image
I have an instinct for survival, for self-preservation.
Julian Barnes
Image
To be stupid, and selfish, and to have good health are the three requirements for happiness.
Julian Barnes
Image
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
Image
The best form of government is one that is dying, because that means it’s giving way to something else.
Julian Barnes
Image
If these are indeed the spirits of Englishmen and Englishwomen who have passed over into the next world, surely they would know how to form a proper queue?
Julian Barnes
Image
History is the lies of the victors.
Julian Barnes
Image
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
Image
The land of embarrassment and breakfast.
Julian Barnes
Image
In life, every ending is just the start of another story.
Julian Barnes
Image
If you’re that clever you can argue yourself into anything.
Julian Barnes
Image
Love is just a system for getting someone to call you darling after sex.
Julian Barnes
Image
When you read a great book, you don’t escape from life, you plunge deeper into it. There may be a superficial escape – into different countries, mores, speech patterns – but what you are essentially doing is furthering your understanding of life’s subtleties, paradoxes, joys, pains and truths. Reading and life are not separate but symbiotic.
Julian Barnes
Image
Discovering, for example, that as witnesses to your life diminish, there is less corroboration, and therefore less certainty, as to what you are or have been. [p. 65]
Julian Barnes
Image
WHORES. Necessary in the nineteenth century for the contraction of syphilis, without which no one could claim genius.
Julian Barnes
Image
But life never lets you go, does it? You can't put down life the way you put down a book.
Julian Barnes
Image
He always thought that Touie's long illness would somehow prepare him for her death. He always imagined that grief anf guilt, if they followed, would be more clear-edged, more defined, more finite. Instead they seem like weather, like clouds constantly re-forming into new shapes, blown by nameless, unidentifiable winds.
Julian Barnes
Image
All bad things are exaggerated in the middle of the night. When you lie awake, you only think of bad things.
Julian Barnes
Image
May you be ordinary, as the poet once wished the new-born baby.
Julian Barnes