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Nature is so exact, it hurts exactly as much as it is worth, so in a way one relishes the pain. If it didn't matter, it wouldn't matter.

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
Exactly
Way
Wouldn
Thinking
Worth
Hurt
Pain
Relishes
Didn
Relish
Nature
Exact
Matter
Hurts

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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.
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He had a better mind and a more rigorous temperament than me he thought logically, and then acted on the conclusion of logical thought. Whereas most of us, I suspect, do the opposite: we make an instinctive decision, then build up an infrastructure of reasoning to justify it. And call the result common sense.
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Books are where things are explained to you life is where things aren't.
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In 1980, I published my first novel, in the usual swirl of unjustified hope and justified anxiety.
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Is any novelist going to recognize the moment when he or she has nothing more to say? It is a brave thing to admit. And since as a professional writer you are full of anxiety anyway, you could easily misread the signs.
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Loving humanity means as much, and as little, as loving raindrops, or loving the Milky Way. You say that you love humanity? Are you sure you aren’t treating yourself to easy self-congratulation, seeking approval, making certain you’re on the right side?
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In an oppressive society the truth-telling nature of literature is of a different order, and sometimes valued more highly than other elements in a work of art.
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May you be ordinary, as the poet once wished the new-born baby.
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History is the lies of the victors.
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Reading is a majority skill but a minority art.
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Novels tell us the most truth about life: what it is, how we live it, what it might be for, how we enjoy and value it, and how we lose it.
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Love may not lead where we think or hope, but regardless of outcome it should be a call to seriousness and truth. If it is not that - if it is not moral in its effect - then love is no more than an exaggerated form of pleasure.
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The companionship of dead writers is a wonderful form of live friendship.
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...God knows you can have complication and difficulty without any compensating depth or seriousness
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WHORES. Necessary in the nineteenth century for the contraction of syphilis, without which no one could claim genius.
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Alice Munro can move characters through time in a way that no other writer can.
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Though why should we expect age to mellow us? If it isn't life's business to reward merit, why should it be life's business to give us warm comfortable feelings towards its end? What possible evolutionary purpose could nostalgia serve?
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Those were the days in this country where H. G. Wells, Bernard Shaw and Conan Doyle could have influence, and thats gone, thats true. But I dont think we have less influence in the hearts and minds of readers. I think, if anything, we have just as much, if not more.
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You lose the world for a glance? Of course you do. That is what the world is for: to lose under the right circunstances.
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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