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9a1f428
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Altitude reduces all things to their relative proportions, and to the truth. Cares, remorse, disgust become strangers: How easily indifference, contempt, forgetfulness drop away...and forgiveness descends.
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love
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Julian Barnes |
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5ab5229
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The heap of dirty dishes was normal for Arthur, who had applied for a reduction in his water rate on the grounds that he washed up only every fortnight, and then used the leftover liquid for watering his roses.
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Julian Barnes |
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9a482d0
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And in these times, people were always in danger of becoming less than fully themselves. If you terrorised them enough, they became something else, something diminished and reduced: mere techniques for survival. And so, it was not just an anxiety, but often a brute fear that he experienced: the fear that love's last days had come.
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Julian Barnes |
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4743d47
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Some Englishman once said that marriage is a long dull meal with the pudding served first.
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Julian Barnes |
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29b979b
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Era ciudat felul in care, pe masura ce imbatraneai, vanitatea era tot mai putin un viciu si devenea aproape opusul ei: o cerinta morala.
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Julian Barnes |
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f0b1422
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What makes us want to know the worst? Is it that we tire of preferring to know the best? Does curiosity always hurdle self-interest? Or is it, more simply, that wanting to know the worst is love's favourite perversion?
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Julian Barnes |
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4b3684a
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In the depths of my heart I can't help being convinced that my dear fellow-men, with a few exceptions, are worthless.
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Julian Barnes |
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2f1b3d0
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lethargic meliorist;
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Julian Barnes |
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739e44e
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This was hopeless. In a novel, Adrian wouldn't just have accepted things as they were put to him. What was the point of having a situation worthy of fiction if the protagonist didn't behave as he would have done in a book? Adrian should have gone snooping, or saved up his pocket money and employed a private detective; perhaps all four of us should have gone off on a Quest to Discover the Truth. Or would that have been less like literature a..
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Julian Barnes |
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b8ad996
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But if nostalgia means the powerful recollection of strong emotions--and a regret that such feelings are no longer present in our lives--then I plead guilty.
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Julian Barnes |
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3ae93be
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historians need to treat a participant's own explanation of events with a certain scepticism. It is often the statement made with an eye to the future that is the most suspect.
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Julian Barnes |
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1aa1629
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Kogda ia byl molozhe, ia poluchal to, chto mne bylo polozheno. Kazalos', v etom i sostoit zhizn'. I gde-to podsoznatel'no ia schital, chto sushchestvuet nekaia sistema vysshei spravedlivosti. No ee net. Ili esli i est', to ne dlia takikh, kak ia. I vozmozhno ne dlia takikh, kak vy. Esli my poluchaem lish' to, chto nam prichitaetsia, to my poluchaem nemnogo, ved' tak? I vse delo v tom, chego ty khochesh', razve net? Kogda ia byl molozhe, i..
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wants
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Julian Barnes |
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5ef1967
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Realizm: Zaiats bezhit bystree Cherepakhi. Namnogo bystree. I eshche on soobrazitel'nei. Poetomu on pobezhdaet. Rano ili pozdno. OK? Sentimental'nyi romantizm: Samodovol'nyi zaiats prikornul u obochiny, a nravstvenno ustoichivaia Cherepakha kovyliaet k finishu. Siurrealizm (ili reklamnyi rolik): Cherepakha, snabzhennaia rolikovymi kon'kami i akkuratnym riukzachkom iz chernoi kozhi, v solntsezashchitnykh ochkakh, legko mchit vpered, a osta..
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literature
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Julian Barnes |
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39ec084
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When I was a medical student some pranksters at an end-of-term dance released into the hall a piglet which had been smeared with grease. It squirmed between legs, evaded capture, squealed a lot. People fell over trying to grasp it, and were made to look ridiculous in the process. The past often seems to behave like that piglet.
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Julian Barnes |
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aa023aa
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When we're young, everyone over the age of thirty looks middle-aged, everyone over fifty antique. And time, as it goes by, confirms that we weren't that wrong. Those little age differentials, so crucial and so gross when we are young, erode. We end up all belonging to the same category, that of the non-young. I've never much minded this myself. But there are exceptions to the rule. For some people, the time differentials established in yout..
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time
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Julian Barnes |
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d0148f7
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This was another of our fears: that Life wouldn't turn out to be like Literature. Look at our parents- were they the stuff of Literature?
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Julian Barnes |
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c72711b
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Nor did any of them apply to Adrian. In the letter he left for the coroner he had explained his reasoning: that life is a gift bestowed without anyone asking for it; that the thinking person has a philosophical duty to examine both the nature of life and the conditions it comes with; and that if this person decides to renounce the gift no one asks for, it is a moral and human duty to act on the consequences of that decision.
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Julian Barnes |
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d2f2e9e
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Naquele tempo imaginavamo-nos fechados numa especie de redil, a espera que nos soltassem para a vida. E, quando o momento chegasse, as nossas vidas - e o proprio tempo - acelarariam. Como podiamos saber que, de qualquer modo, as nossas vidas ja haviam comecado, que ja levavamos vantagem, que algum dano ja fora inflingido?
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Julian Barnes |
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5fe3be3
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Todos nos vamos ter cancer ou uma doenca cardiaca. ha, basicamente, dois tipos de seres humanos, pessoas que refreiam suas emocoes e pessoas que as liberam, rugindo. introvertidos e extrovertidos, se voce preferir. os introvertidos, como e bem sabido, tendem a internalizar suas emocoes, seu odio e autodesprezo, e esta internalizacao, como e igualmente sabido, produz cancer. os extrovertidos, por outro lado, liberam a energia, se enfurecem c..
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Julian Barnes |
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07a2cbc
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Viver sozinho tem momentos de auto-comiseracao e paranoia.
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Julian Barnes |
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bfab938
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Grandpa, in his male armchair, deaf aid occasionally whistling and pipe making a hubble-bubble noise as he sucked on it, would shake his head over DAILY EXPRESS, which described to him a world where truth and justice were constantly imperilled by the Communist Threat. In her softer, female armchair - in the red corner - Grandma would tut-tut away over DAILY WORKER, which described to her a world where truth and justice, in their updated ver..
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Julian Barnes |
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805c4d2
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I want a more difficult life, that's all. What I really want is a first-rate life. I may not get it, but the only chance I have lies in getting out of a second-rate life. I may fail completely, but I do want to try. It's to do with me, not you; so don't worry.
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Julian Barnes |
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02881d9
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I used to think I knew all the answers...That's why I left. I know what to do, I thought. Perhaps you have to persuade yourself you know the answers, otherwise you don't ever do anything. I thought I knew the answers when I married--or at least, I thought I was going to find them out. I thought I knew the answers when I left. Now I'm not sure. Or rather, I know the answers to different things now. Perhaps that's it: we're only capable of kn..
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Julian Barnes |
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d2850ce
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Vivemos no tempo - ele contem-nos e molda-nos - mas nunca senti que o compreendesse muito bem. E nao me refiro a teorias sobre o modo como cede, recua e da meia volta, ou podera existir algures em versoes paralelas. Nao, falo do tempo comum, quotidiano, que os relogios de pulso e de parede nos garantem passar regularmente. Existe algo mais plausivel do que um ponteiro de segundos? E todavia basta a menor dor ou prazer para nos ensinar a mal..
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Julian Barnes |
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80061f4
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Acredito certamente que todos sofremos danos, de uma ou outra maneira. Como podiamos nao sofrer, senao existe um mundo de pais, irmaos, vizinhos e companheiros perfeitos? E depois ha a questao, de que tanta coisa depende, do modo como reagimos ao dano: quer o reconhecamos, quer o recalquemos, e como isso afecta as nossas relacoes com os outros. Alguns admitem o dano e tentam suaviza-lo; outros passam a vida a tentar ajudar outros que sofrer..
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Julian Barnes |
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271fe16
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Vivimos con suposiciones muy faciles, ?no? Por ejemplo, que la memoria es igual a sucesos mas tiempo. Pero es algo mucho mas extrano. ?Quien dijo que la memoria es lo que creiamos que habiamos olvidado? Y deberia ser obvio que el tiempo no actua como un fijador, sino mas bien como un disolvente. Pero no conviene --no es util-- creer esto; no nos ayuda a seguir adelante; por lo tanto, lo pasamos por alto.
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Julian Barnes |
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56a58bd
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He loved his mother: doesn't that warm your silly, sentimental, twentieth-century heart? He loved his father. He loved his sister. He loved his niece. He loved his friends. He admired certain individuals. But his affections were always specific; they were not given away to all comers. This seems enough to me.
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Julian Barnes |
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a79b00c
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I settled into a contented routine of working, spending my free time with Veronica and, back in my student room, wanking explosively to fantasies of her splayed beneath me or arched above me. Daily intimacy made me proud of knowing about make-up, clothes policy, the feminine razor, and the mystery and consequences of a woman's periods. I found myself envying this regular reminder of something so wholly female and defining, so connected to t..
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Julian Barnes |
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33e49c5
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My train was late, slowed by the usual Sunday engineering work. I got home in the early evening. I remember that I had a bloody good long shit.
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Julian Barnes |
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2b5150c
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Why do you think this great nation of ours loves the Royal Family? Gun Law. If we didn't have it, you'd be asking the opposite question.
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Julian Barnes |
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ee34a7b
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S'agapo. Prota prota, kala tha kaname na phulaxoume aute te phrase s'ena pselo raphi, s'ena tetragono kouti, piso apo ena tzami pou prepei na spasoume me ton agkona mas, sten trapeza. Den prepei na ten aphenoume opou na'nai sto spiti, san ena solenario bitamine C. An ten ekhoume prokheire, tha te khresimopoiesoume khoris deutere skepse, den th'antexoume ston peirasmo. Leme bebaia pos den tha to kanoume, alla tha to kanoume. Tha eimaste meth..
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Julian Barnes |
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3ea866c
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Ksanagurizeis ekei ap'opou xekineses. Ekana 240.000 milia gia na do to pheggari -ki auto pou axize pragmatika na do etan e ge.
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Julian Barnes |
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de2b2f3
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Truths about writing can be framed before you've published a word; truths about life can be framed only when it's too late to make any difference.
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Julian Barnes |
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75eb02d
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Flaubert teaches you to gave upon the truth and not blink from its consequences; he teaches you, with Montaigne, to sleep on the pillow of doubt; he teaches you to dissect out the constituent parts of reality, and to observe the Nature is always a mixture of genres; he teaches you the most exact use of language; he teaches you not to approach a book in search of moral or social pills -- literature is not a pharmacopoeia; he teaches the pre-..
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Julian Barnes |
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1324f5d
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Opera cuts to the chase--as death does. An art which seeks, more obviously than any other form, to break your heart.
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opera
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Julian Barnes |
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9711608
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Though always frank, the novelist was never wholly sincere.
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Julian Barnes |
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180414d
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Language is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we long to move the stars to pity.
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Julian Barnes |
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150448a
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I remember what Old Joe Hun said when arguing with Adrian: that mental states can be inferred from actions. That's in history--Henry VIII and all that. Whereas in the private life, I think the converse is true: that you can infer past actions from current mental states.
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Julian Barnes |
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2d628dd
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I am the obscure and patient pearl-fisherman who dives into the deepest waters and comes up with empty hands and a blue face. Some fatal attraction draws me down into the abysses of thought, down into those innermost recesses which never cease to fascinate the strong. I shall spend my life gazing at the ocean of art, where others voyage or fight; and from time to time I'll entertain myself by diving for those green and yellow shells that no..
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Julian Barnes |
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2377dfd
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have at times tried to imagine the despair which leads to suicide, attempted to conjure up the slew and slop of darkness in which only death appears as a pinprick of light:
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Julian Barnes |
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02e17e5
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Her ambitions were no longer specifically for happiness or financial security or freedom from disease (thought they included all three), but for something more general: the continuing certainty of things. She needed to know that she would carry on being herself.
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Julian Barnes |
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c41d232
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But time ... how time first grounds us and then confounds us. 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. Time ... give us enough time and our best-supported decisions will seem wobbly, our certainties whimsical.
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Julian Barnes |
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af4c8d7
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How often do we tell our own life story? How often do we adjust, embellish, make sly cuts? And the longer life goes on, the fewer are those around to challenge our account, to remind us that our life is not our life, merely the story we have told about our life. Told to others, but--mainly--to ourselves.
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Julian Barnes |
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95bedd1
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When you are in your twenties, even if you're confused and uncertain about your aims and purposes, you have a strong sense of what life itself is, and of what you in life are, and might become. Later ... later there is more uncertainty, more overlapping, more backtracking, more false memories. Back then, you can remember your short life in its entirety. Later, the memory becomes a thing of shreds and patches. It's a bit like the black box a..
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Julian Barnes |