Search quotes

Link	Quote	Tags	Author
e1c15df	Op het erf van de boerderij zag je soms de meest onwaarschijnlijke vormen van verbondenheid - de gans verliefd op de ezel, het katje veilig spelend tussen de poten van de vervaarlijke kettinghond. En op het erf van de mensheid bestonden vormen van verbondenheid die al even onwaarschijnlijk, en toch, voor de betrokkenen, nooit absurd waren.		Julian Barnes
9c8c362	jyy khwndh bwdm gr mykhwhyd mrdm bh anchh mygwyyd twjh khnnd, Sdytn r blnd nkhnyd, blkhh arm Hrf bznyd.		Julian Barnes
3c44812	specific fund, you see. It's a sort of general fund. Because at some point everyone wants to run away from their life. It's about the only thing human beings have in common.		Julian Barnes
3fd8b54	time's many paradoxes. For instance: that when we are young and sensitive, we are also at our most hurtful; whereas when the blood begins to slow, when we feel less sharply, when we are more armoured and have learnt how to bear hurt, we tread more carefully.		Julian Barnes
ef643d8	But then lovers always assume that people are on their side.		Julian Barnes
9724561	And in your opinion, the notion that everything works out in the end, and the counter-notion that nothing ever does, are both equally banal.		Julian Barnes
db95421	finding another woman can bring an exceptional clarity of mind to a man all of a sudden.		Julian Barnes
a069796	What he didn't - or couldn't - tell Joan was his terrifying discovery that love, by some ruthless, almost chemical process, could resolve itself into pity and anger.		Julian Barnes
9de6d69	Sad sex is the saddest sex of all.		Julian Barnes
2dc6f73	the littleness of life that art exaggerates"?"		Julian Barnes
45a301c	Daha once bir araya getirilmemis iki kisiyi bir araya getirebilirsiniz. Bu bazen atesle calisan bir balona, hidrojenle calisan bir balonu baglamanin su ilk denemesinde oldugu gibi bir seydir; yere cakilip yanmayi mi yeglersiniz yoksa yanip yere cakilmayi mi? Ama bazen de deneme basarilir ve yeni bir sey yaratilir dunya degisir.		Julian Barnes
2576429	those photographs taken from lunar orbit, in which our planet looks more or less like any other planet (except to an astronomer): silent, revolving, beautiful, dead, irrelevant.		Julian Barnes
2718445	What happened to the truth is not recorded.		Julian Barnes
7f3b66c	Most of us have only one story to tell. I don't mean that only one thing happens to us in our lives: there are countless events, which we turn into countless stories. But there's only one that matters, only one finally worth telling. This is mine. Perhaps this is an illusion all lovers have about themselves: that they escape both category and description.		Julian Barnes
95dc5bf	Privately, the three of us examined his case and came up with a theory: that the key to a happy family life was for there not to be a family--or at least, not one living together. Having made this analysis, we envied Adrian the more.		Julian Barnes
9feeed0	The panic takes some to God, others to despair, some to charitable works, others to drink, some to emotional oblivion, others to a life where they hope that nothing serious will ever trouble them again.		Julian Barnes
8188e00	He didn't go to church. He read The Times and the Telegraph. He had been friendly and polite with me, but also sarcastic and rude; mainly, I would say, indifferent. He seemed to be cross with life.		Julian Barnes
39f5ea4	I nodded to him with the authority of a young academic approving a peasant.		Julian Barnes
0ee5dc3	It seems to me that when you are young, you think about sex most of the time, but you don't reflect on it much	young-sexuality	Julian Barnes
b1bd128	Most of us have only one story to tell. I don't mean that only one thing happens to us in our lives: there are countless events, which we turn into countless stories. But there's only one that matters, only one finally worth telling. This is mine.	quote the-only-story	Julian Barnes
b9f9e54	For most of us, the first experience of love, even if it doesn't work out--perhaps especially when it doesn't work out--promises that here is the thing that validates, that vindicates life. And though subsequent years might alter this view, until some of us give up on it altogether, when love first strikes, there's nothing like it, is there? Agreed?	love vindication vindication-across-time promises	Julian Barnes
265c502	Love, he had ventured, was like the vast and sudden uncreasing of a lifelong frown.		Julian Barnes
2dceade	And one other thing: don't ask me about the weather. I don't much remember what the weather has been like during my life. True, I can remember how hot sun gave greater impetus to sex; how sudden snow delighted, and how cold, damp days set off those early symptoms that eventually led to a double hip replacement. But nothing significant in my life ever happened during, let alone because of, weather. So if you don't mind, meteorology will play..	the-only-story julian-barnes weather	Julian Barnes
5f9d283	My parents' marriage, to my unforgiving nineteen-year-old eye, was a car crash of cliche. Though I would have to admit, as the one making the judgement, that a 'car crash of of cliche' is itself a cliche.	humor the-only-story julian-barnes language	Julian Barnes
f622e5d	And perhaps I I didn't even understand the young when I was young. That could be true too.	youth out-of-the-loop the-only-story julian-barnes outsider young	Julian Barnes
faa1df6	Nowadays, at the other end of life, I have a rule of thumb about whether or not two people are having an affair: if you think they might be, then they definitely are.	affairs the-only-story julian-barnes	Julian Barnes
1726bbc	So. I see where you're going--bus number 27 to a crossroads near Delphi. Look, I did not want, at any point, on any level, to kill my own father and sleep with my own mother. It's true that I wanted to sleep with Susan--and did so many times--and for a number of years thought of killing Gordon Macleod, but that is another part of the story. Not to put too fine a point on it, I think the Oedipus myth is precisely what it started off as: melo..	clever humor oedipal oedipus the-only-story julian-barnes psychology	Julian Barnes
bb711f6	They grow up so quickly, don't they?" when all you really mean is: time goes faster for me nowadays. Margaret's"		Julian Barnes
38ef61a	Later--well, what came later, came later.	later the-only-story julian-barnes	Julian Barnes
f5973a8	They grow up so quickly, don't they?" when all you really mean is: time goes faster for me nowadays."		Julian Barnes
930002a	Sit yourself down," Joan instructed as we reached the the fag-fogged, gin-scented den that was nominally her sitting room." --	humor the-only-story julian-barnes	Julian Barnes
ba31f07	And first love always happens in the overwhelming first person. How can it not? Also, in the overwhelming present tense. It takes us time to realise that there are other persons, and other tenses.	first-person present-tense the-only-story julian-barnes language	Julian Barnes
d3486c7	So (and this would have happened earlier, but I am only remembering it now): I am visiting her one afternoon.	nonlinear the-only-story storytelling memory	Julian Barnes
128906b	Whereas it seemed to me, back then, in the absolutism of my condition, that love had nothing to do with practicality; indeed, was its polar opposite. And the fact that it showed contempt for such banal considerations was part of its glory. Love was by its very nature disruptive, cataclysmic; and if it was not, then it was not love.	love practicality the-only-story julian-barnes	Julian Barnes
ce59c1f	It is only a metaphor--or the worst of dreams; yet there are metaphors which sit more powerfully in the brain than remembered events.	metaphor reality the-only-story julian-barnes memory	Julian Barnes
901d20b	But that was the nature of relationships: there always seemed to be an imbalance of one sort or another.	relationships power-dynamics relationship-dynamics the-only-story julian-barnes	Julian Barnes
86b4123	She has only a ghostplay on some frayed screen of memory, which she takes to be the present.	the-only-story memory-loss memory	Julian Barnes
3b950b4	We end up all belonging to the same category, that of the non-young.		Julian Barnes
cb18497	And even when he guessed that the love stories of the misled and the forsaken had become a little less authentic with each retelling . . . even if this was the case, he was still moved. Indeed, he was more moved by the lives of the bereft and the unchosen than he was by stories of success in love.	love forsaken love-stories unlucky-in-love the-only-story julian-barnes unrequited-love	Julian Barnes
2691fb4	The sadness of life. That was another conundrum he would occasionally ponder.	sadness life the-only-story	Julian Barnes
1dc8c7d	He knew what they said of him locally: Oh, he likes to keep himself to himself. The phrase was descriptive, not judgemental. It was a principle of life the English still respected. And it wasn't just about privacy, about an Englishman's home--even a pebbledash semi--being his castle. It was about something more: about the self, and where you kept it, and who, if anyone, was allowed to fully see it.	inner-life the-only-story julian-barnes englishman the-self privacy	Julian Barnes
00711e9	The long answer was too time-consuming to give. The short answer was too painful. It went like this. It was a question of what heartbreak is, and how exactly the heart breaks, and what is left of it afterwards.	heartbreak heart painful the-only-story julian-barnes	Julian Barnes
1a98bef	Love means never having to say you're sorry (on the contrary, it frequently means doing just precisely that). Then there were all those love lines from all those love songs, with the swooning delusions of lyricist, singer, band.	love love-songs platitudes the-only-story	Julian Barnes
9f71671	He never recorded the writer or the source: he didn't want to be bullied by reputation; truth should stand by itself, clear and unsupported.	truth quotations the-only-story	Julian Barnes

e1c15df

Op het erf van de boerderij zag je soms de meest onwaarschijnlijke vormen van verbondenheid - de gans verliefd op de ezel, het katje veilig spelend tussen de poten van de vervaarlijke kettinghond. En op het erf van de mensheid bestonden vormen van verbondenheid die al even onwaarschijnlijk, en toch, voor de betrokkenen, nooit absurd waren.

Julian Barnes

9c8c362

jyy khwndh bwdm gr mykhwhyd mrdm bh anchh mygwyyd twjh khnnd, Sdytn r blnd nkhnyd, blkhh arm Hrf bznyd.

Julian Barnes

3c44812

specific fund, you see. It's a sort of general fund. Because at some point everyone wants to run away from their life. It's about the only thing human beings have in common.

Julian Barnes

3fd8b54

time's many paradoxes. For instance: that when we are young and sensitive, we are also at our most hurtful; whereas when the blood begins to slow, when we feel less sharply, when we are more armoured and have learnt how to bear hurt, we tread more carefully.

Julian Barnes

ef643d8

But then lovers always assume that people are on their side.

Julian Barnes

9724561

And in your opinion, the notion that everything works out in the end, and the counter-notion that nothing ever does, are both equally banal.

Julian Barnes

db95421

finding another woman can bring an exceptional clarity of mind to a man all of a sudden.

Julian Barnes

a069796

What he didn't - or couldn't - tell Joan was his terrifying discovery that love, by some ruthless, almost chemical process, could resolve itself into pity and anger.

Julian Barnes

9de6d69

Sad sex is the saddest sex of all.

Julian Barnes

2dc6f73

the littleness of life that art exaggerates"?"

Julian Barnes

45a301c

Daha once bir araya getirilmemis iki kisiyi bir araya getirebilirsiniz. Bu bazen atesle calisan bir balona, hidrojenle calisan bir balonu baglamanin su ilk denemesinde oldugu gibi bir seydir; yere cakilip yanmayi mi yeglersiniz yoksa yanip yere cakilmayi mi? Ama bazen de deneme basarilir ve yeni bir sey yaratilir dunya degisir.

Julian Barnes

2576429

those photographs taken from lunar orbit, in which our planet looks more or less like any other planet (except to an astronomer): silent, revolving, beautiful, dead, irrelevant.

Julian Barnes

2718445

What happened to the truth is not recorded.

Julian Barnes

7f3b66c

Most of us have only one story to tell. I don't mean that only one thing happens to us in our lives: there are countless events, which we turn into countless stories. But there's only one that matters, only one finally worth telling. This is mine. Perhaps this is an illusion all lovers have about themselves: that they escape both category and description.

Julian Barnes

95dc5bf

Privately, the three of us examined his case and came up with a theory: that the key to a happy family life was for there not to be a family--or at least, not one living together. Having made this analysis, we envied Adrian the more.

Julian Barnes

9feeed0

The panic takes some to God, others to despair, some to charitable works, others to drink, some to emotional oblivion, others to a life where they hope that nothing serious will ever trouble them again.

Julian Barnes

8188e00

He didn't go to church. He read The Times and the Telegraph. He had been friendly and polite with me, but also sarcastic and rude; mainly, I would say, indifferent. He seemed to be cross with life.

Julian Barnes

39f5ea4

I nodded to him with the authority of a young academic approving a peasant.

Julian Barnes

0ee5dc3

It seems to me that when you are young, you think about sex most of the time, but you don't reflect on it much

young-sexuality

Julian Barnes

b1bd128

Most of us have only one story to tell. I don't mean that only one thing happens to us in our lives: there are countless events, which we turn into countless stories. But there's only one that matters, only one finally worth telling. This is mine.

quote the-only-story

Julian Barnes

b9f9e54

For most of us, the first experience of love, even if it doesn't work out--perhaps especially when it doesn't work out--promises that here is the thing that validates, that vindicates life. And though subsequent years might alter this view, until some of us give up on it altogether, when love first strikes, there's nothing like it, is there? Agreed?

love vindication vindication-across-time promises

Julian Barnes

265c502

Love, he had ventured, was like the vast and sudden uncreasing of a lifelong frown.

Julian Barnes

2dceade

And one other thing: don't ask me about the weather. I don't much remember what the weather has been like during my life. True, I can remember how hot sun gave greater impetus to sex; how sudden snow delighted, and how cold, damp days set off those early symptoms that eventually led to a double hip replacement. But nothing significant in my life ever happened during, let alone because of, weather. So if you don't mind, meteorology will play..

the-only-story julian-barnes weather

Julian Barnes

5f9d283

My parents' marriage, to my unforgiving nineteen-year-old eye, was a car crash of cliche. Though I would have to admit, as the one making the judgement, that a 'car crash of of cliche' is itself a cliche.

humor the-only-story julian-barnes language

Julian Barnes

f622e5d

And perhaps I I didn't even understand the young when I was young. That could be true too.

youth out-of-the-loop the-only-story julian-barnes outsider young

Julian Barnes

faa1df6

Nowadays, at the other end of life, I have a rule of thumb about whether or not two people are having an affair: if you think they might be, then they definitely are.

affairs the-only-story julian-barnes

Julian Barnes

1726bbc

So. I see where you're going--bus number 27 to a crossroads near Delphi. Look, I did not want, at any point, on any level, to kill my own father and sleep with my own mother. It's true that I wanted to sleep with Susan--and did so many times--and for a number of years thought of killing Gordon Macleod, but that is another part of the story. Not to put too fine a point on it, I think the Oedipus myth is precisely what it started off as: melo..

clever humor oedipal oedipus the-only-story julian-barnes psychology

Julian Barnes

bb711f6

They grow up so quickly, don't they?" when all you really mean is: time goes faster for me nowadays. Margaret's"

Julian Barnes

38ef61a

Later--well, what came later, came later.

later the-only-story julian-barnes

Julian Barnes

f5973a8

They grow up so quickly, don't they?" when all you really mean is: time goes faster for me nowadays."

Julian Barnes

930002a

Sit yourself down," Joan instructed as we reached the the fag-fogged, gin-scented den that was nominally her sitting room." --

humor the-only-story julian-barnes

Julian Barnes

ba31f07

And first love always happens in the overwhelming first person. How can it not? Also, in the overwhelming present tense. It takes us time to realise that there are other persons, and other tenses.

first-person present-tense the-only-story julian-barnes language

Julian Barnes

d3486c7

So (and this would have happened earlier, but I am only remembering it now): I am visiting her one afternoon.

nonlinear the-only-story storytelling memory

Julian Barnes

128906b

Whereas it seemed to me, back then, in the absolutism of my condition, that love had nothing to do with practicality; indeed, was its polar opposite. And the fact that it showed contempt for such banal considerations was part of its glory. Love was by its very nature disruptive, cataclysmic; and if it was not, then it was not love.

love practicality the-only-story julian-barnes

Julian Barnes

ce59c1f

It is only a metaphor--or the worst of dreams; yet there are metaphors which sit more powerfully in the brain than remembered events.

metaphor reality the-only-story julian-barnes memory

Julian Barnes

901d20b

But that was the nature of relationships: there always seemed to be an imbalance of one sort or another.

relationships power-dynamics relationship-dynamics the-only-story julian-barnes

Julian Barnes

86b4123

She has only a ghostplay on some frayed screen of memory, which she takes to be the present.

the-only-story memory-loss memory

Julian Barnes

3b950b4

We end up all belonging to the same category, that of the non-young.

Julian Barnes

cb18497

And even when he guessed that the love stories of the misled and the forsaken had become a little less authentic with each retelling . . . even if this was the case, he was still moved. Indeed, he was more moved by the lives of the bereft and the unchosen than he was by stories of success in love.

love forsaken love-stories unlucky-in-love the-only-story julian-barnes unrequited-love

Julian Barnes

2691fb4

The sadness of life. That was another conundrum he would occasionally ponder.

sadness life the-only-story

Julian Barnes

1dc8c7d

He knew what they said of him locally: Oh, he likes to keep himself to himself. The phrase was descriptive, not judgemental. It was a principle of life the English still respected. And it wasn't just about privacy, about an Englishman's home--even a pebbledash semi--being his castle. It was about something more: about the self, and where you kept it, and who, if anyone, was allowed to fully see it.

inner-life the-only-story julian-barnes englishman the-self privacy

Julian Barnes

00711e9

The long answer was too time-consuming to give. The short answer was too painful. It went like this. It was a question of what heartbreak is, and how exactly the heart breaks, and what is left of it afterwards.

heartbreak heart painful the-only-story julian-barnes

Julian Barnes

1a98bef

Love means never having to say you're sorry (on the contrary, it frequently means doing just precisely that). Then there were all those love lines from all those love songs, with the swooning delusions of lyricist, singer, band.

love love-songs platitudes the-only-story

Julian Barnes

9f71671

He never recorded the writer or the source: he didn't want to be bullied by reputation; truth should stand by itself, clear and unsupported.

truth quotations the-only-story

Julian Barnes