Quote

Perhaps the world progresses not by maturing, but by being in a permanent state of adolescence, of thrilled discovery.

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
Progress
Progresses
State
Maturing
States
Thrilled
World
Adolescence
Mature
Permanent
Discovery
Perhaps

More quotes by Julian Barnes

Image
And yet it takes only the smallest pleasure or pain to teach us time’s malleability.
Julian Barnes
Image
This was long before the term 'single-parent family' came into use back then it was a 'broken home'.
Julian Barnes
Image
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.
Julian Barnes
Image
There's nothing wrong with being a genius who can fascinate the young. Rather, there's something wrong with the young who can't be fascinated by a genius.
Julian Barnes
Image
To own a certain book - and to choose it without help - is to define yourself.
Julian Barnes
Image
Wisdom consists partly in not pretending anymore, in discarding artifice.
Julian Barnes
Image
I was initially planning to write about grief in terms of Eurydice and the myth thereof. By that point the overall metaphor of height and depth and flat and falling and rising was coming into being in my mind.
Julian Barnes
Image
He didn’t really like travel, of course. He liked the idea of travel, and the memory of travel, but not travel itself.
Julian Barnes
Image
In Britain I'm sometimes regarded as a suspiciously Europeanized writer, who has this rather dubious French influence.
Julian Barnes
Image
But then you begin to understand that the reward of merit is not life’s business.
Julian Barnes
Image
His air of failure had nothing desperate about it rather, it seemed to stem from an unresented realisation that he was not cut out for success, and his duty was therefore to ensure only that he failed in the correct and acceptable fashion.
Julian Barnes
Image
I don't believe in God, but I miss him.
Julian Barnes
Image
The spring of 1930 marks the end of a period of grave concern...American business is steadily coming back to a normal level of prosperity.
Julian Barnes
Image
If a man cannot tell what he wants to do, then he must find out what he ought to do. If desire has become complicated, then hold fast to duty.
Julian Barnes
Image
Memories of childhood were the dreams that stayed with you after you woke.
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
The writer's life [is] full of frailty and defeat like any other life. What counts is the work. Yet the work can quite easily be buried, or half-buried, by the life.
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
The companionship of dead writers is a wonderful form of live friendship.
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