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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| 11334d5 | Never forget, the most vulnerable spot is down the middle. | Julian Barnes | ||
| 88a5e9e | Everything you wanted to say required a context. If you gave the full context, people thought you a rambling old fool. If you didn't give the context, people thought you a laconic old fool. | Julian Barnes | ||
| c0848af | The cure for sex is marriage; the cure for love is marriage; the cure for infidelity is divorce; the cure for unhappiness is work; the cure for extreme unhappiness is drink; the cure for death is a frail belief in the afterlife. | Julian Barnes | ||
| 49df3c8 | So, you see, we're a played-out generation. All the best ones went. We were left with the lesser ones. It's always like that in war. That's why it's up to your generation now. | Julian Barnes | ||
| 52d06f6 | First love fixes a life for ever: this much I have discovered over the years. | Julian Barnes | ||
| 0a34b25 | But ignoring the bad things makes you end up believing that bad things never happen. You are always surprised by them. It surprises you that guns kill, that money corrupts, that snow falls in winter. Such naivety can be charming; alas, it can also be perilous. | Julian Barnes | ||
| d45ca17 | You realize that you want official interference into other people's lives but not into your own. You also realize that your truthfulness has become dangerously flexible. | Julian Barnes | ||
| b0254be | 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. | Julian Barnes | ||
| 5d2c7d0 | The orthodoxy runs, that if a marriage is founded on less than perfect truth it will always come to light. I don't believe that. Marriage moves you further away from the examination of truth, not nearer to it. | Julian Barnes | ||
| cc7a401 | And who does not want their love authenticated? | love the-only-story | Julian Barnes | |
| 9c3d01a | You see--I hope you never get there yourself--but some of us get to the point in life where we realise that nothing matters. Nothing fucking matters. | julian-barnes nihilism nothing-matters the-only-story world-weary | Julian Barnes | |
| 565b66b | 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 . . . And if we're talking about strong feelings that will never come again, I suppose it's possible to be nostalgic about remembered pain as well as remembered pleasure. And that opens up the field, doesn't it? | julian-barnes memory nostalgia pain pleasure the-sense-of-an-ending | Julian Barnes | |
| 30d65ec | Jedan drugi prijatelj je umro, iznenada, katastrofalno, pored pokretne trake za prtljag na nekom stranom aerodromu. Njegova zena je otisla po kolica, kada se vratila, gomila ljudi je bila okupljena oko necega. Mozda se otvorio i prosuo neki kofer. Ali ne, otvorio se i prosuo njen muz, i vec je bio mrtav. Godinu ili dve kasnije, kada je moja zena umrla, napisala mi je: ,,. | Julian Barnes | ||
| 369b352 | If Tony hadn't been fearful, hadn't counted on the approval of others for his own self-approval . . . and so on, through a succession of hypotheticals leading to the final one: so, for instance, if Tony hadn't been Tony. | in-another-life julian-barnes regret sad the-sense-of-an-ending what-if | Julian Barnes | |
| fbe13ab | Yes, of course we were pretentious--what else is youth for? | Julian Barnes | ||
| b7dc5e9 | Once bitten, twice shy; twice bitten, forever shy. | hurt julian-barnes once-bitten-twice-shy the-only-story wounded | Julian Barnes | |
| f6e6a18 | My younger self had come back to shock my older self with what that self had been, or was, or was sometimes capable of being. And only recently I'd been going on about how the witnesses to our lives decrease, and with them our essential corroboration. Now I had some all too unwelcome corroboration of what I was, or had been. | former-self identity julian-barnes self the-past the-sense-of-an-ending | Julian Barnes | |
| a956a82 | And so, for the first time, I began to feel a more general remorse--a feeling somewhere between self-pity and self-hatred--about my whole life. | life regret remorse self-hatred self-pity the-sense-of-an-ending | Julian Barnes | |
| 8d517f5 | We're all just looking for a place of safety. And if you don't find one, then you have to learn how to pass the time. | Julian Barnes | ||
| 36e2ef6 | Oi arnetes tou khronou lene: ta saranta den einai tipota, sta penenta eisai sto anthos tes elikias sou, ta exenta einai semera san ta palia saranta, kai paei legontas. Auto pou xero ego einai oti uparkhei o antikeimenikos khronos, uparkhei omos kai o upokeimenikos, autos pou ton phoras ste mesa meria tou karpou sou, ekei pou khtupaei o sphugmos. Ki autos o prosopikos khronos, pou einai o alethinos, metrietai ste skhese pou ekheis me te mnem.. | Julian Barnes | ||
| 4615fac | What could be put up against the noise of time? Only that music which is inside ourselves--the music of our being--which is transformed by some into real music. Which, over the decades, if it is strong and true and pure enough to drown out the noise of time, is transformed into the whisper of history. | Julian Barnes | ||
| 3102cc1 | So, you see, we're a played-out generation. All the best ones went. We were left with the lesser ones. It's always like that in war. That's why it's up to your generation now.' But I don't feel part | Julian Barnes | ||
| 08e8568 | We didn't do anger in my family. We did ironic comment, snappy rejoinder, satirical elaboration; we did exact words forbidding a certain action, and more severe ones condemning what had already taken place. But for anything beyond this, we did the thing enjoined upon the English middle classes for generations. We internalised our rage, our anger, our contempt. We spoke words under our breath. | Julian Barnes | ||
| a7ea4cf | There were two ways of looking at life;or two extremes of viewpoint, anyway, with a continuum between them. One proposed that every human action necessarily carried with it the obliteration of every other action which might have been performed instead; life therefore consisted of a succession of small and large choices, expressions of free will, so that the individual was like the captain of some paddle steamer chugging down the mighty Miss.. | Julian Barnes | ||
| a36e0ec | It's a condition of our mortality. We have codes of manners to allay and minimise it, jokes and routines, and so many forms of diversion and distraction. But there is panic and pandemonium waiting to break out inside all of us, of this I am convinced. I've seen it roar out among the dying, as a last protest against the human condition and its chronic sadness. But it is there in the most balanced and rational of us. You just need the right c.. | Julian Barnes | ||
| 29d812d | One small revenge might be to die and show no signs of having died. | Julian Barnes | ||
| a710b2e | Work would be something I jogged along with; love would be my life. | Julian Barnes | ||
| 596835a | You remembered your past in cheerful terms because this validated your existence. You didn't have to see your life as any kind of triumph - his own had hardly been that - but you did need to tell yourself that it had been interesting, enjoyable, purposeful. | Julian Barnes | ||
| 5aace16 | Part of growing up is developing a bullshit detector, and kids usually do a pretty fair job of wising each other up. | Pauline Kael | ||
| 20b95e8 | When President Nixon was reelected in a landslide in 1972, film critic Pauline Kael famously said in disbelief, "I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don't know. They're outside my ken. But sometimes when I'm in a theater I can feel them."14 Her statement has come to symbolize the insulation of the liberal elite, living in a bubble and hearing only the opinions of fellow liberals. It.. | Roger Stone | ||
| 365ce08 | it may be time to stop worrying about what we are making extinct and start nurturing what will outlast us. | Gail Collins-Ranadive | ||
| ba3d205 | He was so easygoing, she forgot he could be deadly. And startling as his anger was, it gave her another key to understanding him. | Suzanne Enoch | ||
| 0302044 | I haven't heard a woman say my name in a long time, Theresa. Say my name." She pulled in a hard breath, pretending to be annoyed rather than unsettled and excited by the intimacy. "Very well. Tolly. Better?" "Infinitely." Slowly he ran his fingertips along her cheek, making her shiver. "So many handsome gentlemen courting you, Tess," he whispered, "and yet here you are." | Suzanne Enoch | ||
| d9ab10c | He smiled. "Happy anniversary, Samantha Jellicoe. So, Godzilla, or sex?" Samantha laughed. "How about both?" "I like that. I get to be Godzilla." "I guess that makes me Tokyo." | Suzanne Enoch | ||
| 4e11440 | I would like to point out, though, Lady Georgiana," he continued, "that you have decided to stay in a household with five single gentlemen, three of them adults." "Four," Andrew broke in, coloring. "I'm seventeen. That's older than Romeo was when he married Juliet." "And it's younger than I am, which is what counts," Tristan countered, sending his brother a stern look." | family hilarious | Suzanne Enoch | |
| 7b2b61b | Well, sometimes Reginald tries to ride Waya, and his pipe sticks out when he does it." In the doorway behind him Rebecca made a choking sound. "His pipe?" she asked faintly. "That's what Pogue says it's called. A pipe and bags. Like a bagpipe. All boys have them." | Suzanne Enoch | ||
| 057f8ca | On nights like this, when he rode out from the dark, silent house to the dark, deserted park, he could forget. He could be nothing but a solitary rider on a fast horse, wind in his face and the world open around him. No walls, no bars, no quiet weeping or screams or death. None of that could catch him. On a night like this, none of it could find him. | Suzanne Enoch | ||
| 81f5c8e | What?" she asked, eyeing him in the mirror. He shook himself. "What what?" "You're smiling. That scares me." | Suzanne Enoch | ||
| 99d16e9 | She wants you back." Her gaze held his for a half-dozen heartbeats before she broke away, increasing her pace through the lobby and into the warm air of eastern Florida in January. Richard followed her, a dozen denials and rebuttals fighting for position. "She does not." "Ooh, good retort. Prove it." "She needs someone to cosign her paperwork, and I'm the only one she could think of to do it. I spend time here. Hence, Palm Beach." "She need.. | Suzanne Enoch | ||
| 5ec57d5 | She shifted gears as they left Worth Avenue, hurtling them along the beach at just sublight speed. "Jesus, Addison, you are so blind," she finally exploded. "She comes in playing the damsel in distress, and you buy all of it." "She did n--" "'Oh, Richard, I need your help,'" she mimicked, doing a startlingly good impression of Patricia's soft, cultured Brit--especially since the two women had barely spoken a total of five words to one anoth.. | Suzanne Enoch | ||
| ccb96eb | I'm going to say a word, just for your general opinion and consideration," he said, his light blue gaze touching hers. "I'm listening." "Marriage." Zephyr blinked. Had he actually just suggested a proposal? A marriage? With her? A thousand thoughts all flitted through her mind, none of them making any sense, but several of them centering on whether she was reading too much or too little into one blasted word. "I think"--she stumbled, backin.. | Suzanne Enoch | ||
| b35df06 | Come below for a moment. Please." "Zephyr, I don't have time t--" "Bradshaw, do me the courtesy of at least looking at me when I'm talking to you, or I shall punch you in the nose." His lean jaw twitched, but he folded his arms across his chest and faced her. "What is it, then?" She took a deep breath. This would have been so much easier in a more intimate setting and if he wasn't glaring at her. "Shaw, I just wanted to say--that is, I mean.. | Suzanne Enoch | ||
| b617927 | He sighed. "You've chosen poorly, you know. When we return to England you'll be celebrated, just as I will be. If you've decided to abandon me, you might have netted someone titled, someone with enough wealth to see you esteemed and me able to continue my botanical studies. That would have been the aim of a dutiful daughter." "I'm not abandoning you, and I chose Shaw. You're the one who declined to attend your daughter's wedding." "You neve.. | Suzanne Enoch | ||
| c24d5e2 | That was the thing about courage, she was discovering. It opened so much more of the world to her than she'd expected. A | Suzanne Enoch |