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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| 335fb2c | But I was wrong about most things, then as now. | the-sense-of-an-ending wrong | Julian Barnes | |
| 43021fd | May you be ordinary, as the poet once wished the newborn baby. | Julian Barnes | ||
| 103d7ad | You might even ask me to apply my 'theory' to myself and explain what damage I had suffered a long way back and what its consequences might be: for instance, how it might affect my reliability and truthfulness. I'm not sure I could answer this, to be honest. | julian-barnes meta reliability the-sense-of-an-ending truth truthfulness unreliable-narrator | Julian Barnes | |
| ec3d703 | L'arte appartiene a tutti e a nessuno. L'arte appartiene a tutti i tempi e a nessun tempo in particolare. L'arte appartiene a chi la produce e a chi l'assapora. L'arte non appartiene piu al Popolo e al Partito di quanto una volta non appartenesse all'aristocrazia e ai mecenati. L'arte e il mormorio della storia, udibile al di la del rumore del tempo. L'arte non esiste per se: esiste per il pubblico. | storia tempo | Julian Barnes | |
| 46bb488 | He became nervous, things blurred in his mind, and he would sometimes make a decision simply in order to have the matter settled rather than because he knew what he wanted. | Julian Barnes | ||
| 7b330fe | If you don't know what's true, or what's meant to be true, then the value of what isn't true, or isn't meant to be true, becomes diminished. | Julian Barnes | ||
| 0a75888 | Style is a function of theme. Style is not imposed on subject-matter, but arises from it. Style is truth to thought. | Julian Barnes | ||
| fd850c8 | Flaubert thought democracy merely a stage in the history of government, and he thought it a typical vanity on our part to assume that it represented the finest, proudest way for men to rule one another. He believed in--or rather, he did not fail to notice -- the perpetual evolution of humanity, and therefore the evolution of its social forms: 'Democracy isn't mankind's last word, any more than slavery was, or feudalism was, or monarchy was... | Julian Barnes | ||
| 153e5e5 | I don't want you to be a woman of mystery. I think I'd hate it. Either it's just a facade, a game, a technique for ensnaring men, or else the woman of mystery is a mystery even to herself, and that's the worst of all. | Julian Barnes | ||
| 0dbfed7 | Por que esta la gente tan empenada en que el aprendizaje sea como un juego? Disfrutan dandole a todo un tono infantil, incluso para los adultos. Especialmente para los adultos. | infantilización-de-la-sociedad | Julian Barnes | |
| beab0ce | everyone has their love story. Even if it was a fiasco, even if it fizzled out, never got going, had all been in the mind to begin with: that didn't make it any the less real. And it was the only story | Julian Barnes | ||
| 056a6f5 | There was another thing. It was a job below his qualifications. Not that he didn't take it seriously; he did. But since, professionally, he had now lowered his expectations, he found that he was rarely disappointed. | Julian Barnes | ||
| e0e7d8f | It seemed that Soviet power had finally decided to love him; and he had never felt a clammier embrace. | Julian Barnes | ||
| f3652af | once, they had their love story. Everyone does. It's the only story. | Julian Barnes | ||
| 2a57f96 | The truth was that nobody ever arrived without invitation, and all that tidying and wiping was performed out of what struck me as deep social atavism | Julian Barnes | ||
| 8cb45fd | In the old days, a child might pay for the sins of the father, or indeed mother. Nowadays, in the most advanced society on earth, the parents might pay for the sins of the child, along with uncles, aunts, cousins, in-laws, colleagues, friends, and even the man who unthinkingly smiled at you as he came out of the lift at three in the morning. The system of retribution had been greatly improved, and was so much more inclusive than it used to .. | Julian Barnes | ||
| 0d25cda | been | Mary Higgins Clark | ||
| ac08d76 | Not over-interested in domestic matters, it was true; but then neither was he. In a novel, all his life's anxieties, his mixture of strength and weakness, his potential for hysteria--all would have been swirled away in a vortex of love leading to the blissful calm of marriage. But one of life's many disappointments was that it was never a novel, not by Maupassant or anyone else. Well, perhaps a short satirical tale by Gogol" (p.38)" | Julian Barnes | ||
| b198f59 | And yet, for all this, for all that he was unparalleled in depicting tyrants knee-deep in blood, Shakespeare was a little naive. Because his monsters had doubts, bad dreams, pangs of conscience, guilt. They saw the spirits of those they had killed rising in front of them. But in real life, under real terror, what guilty conscience? What bad dreams? That was all sentimentality, false optimism, a hope that the world would be as we wanted it t.. | Julian Barnes | ||
| 1fa9a3d | But the very action of naming something that subsequently happens--of wishing specific evil, and that evil coming to pass--this still has a shiver of the otherworldly about it. | evil julian-barnes otherworldly prophetic the-sense-of-an-ending uncanny | Julian Barnes | |
| aa07f9f | Knygos tvirtina: ji padare tai todel ir todel. Gyvenimas tvirtina: ji padare tai. Tik knygose viskas paaiskinama, o gyvenime nicniekas. Nesistebiu, kad kai kurie zmones teikia pirmenybe knygoms. Knygos iprasmina gyvenima. Visa beda, kad jos iprasmina kitu zmoniu gyvenima, bet ne tavaji. | knygos | Julian Barnes | |
| a26fa8c | marriage is a long dull meal with the pudding served first. | marriage | Julian Barnes | |
| 8f91333 | That afternoon, he handed out a poem with no title, date or author's name, gave us ten minutes to study it, then asked for our responses. 'Shall we start with you, Finn? Put simply, what would you say this poem is about?' Adrian looked up from his desk. 'Eros and Thanatos, sir.' 'Hmm. Go on.' 'Sex and death,' Finn continued, as if it might not just be the thickies in the back row who didn't understand Greek. 'Or love and death, if you pref.. | Julian Barnes | ||
| 6417d46 | Good sex is better than bad sex. Bad sex is better than no sex, except when no sex is better than bad sex. Self-sex is better than no sex, except when no sex is better than self-sex. Sad sex is always far worse than good sex, bad sex, self-sex and no sex. Sad sex is the saddest sex of all. | Julian Barnes | ||
| e99eed9 | I met a girl while I was out there: Annie. She was American, travelling round like me. We hooked up, as she put it, and spent three months together. She wore plaid shirts, had grey-green eyes and a friendly manner; we became lovers easily and quickly; I couldn't believe my luck. Nor could I believe how simple it was: to be friends and bed companions, to laugh and drink and smoke a little dope together, to see a bit of the world side by side.. | Julian Barnes | ||
| b990d96 | Of course, opera has plot - and I was already anticipating all those unknown stories I was about to discover - but its main function is to deliver the characters as swiftly as possible to the point where thet can sing of their deepest emotions. Opera cuts to the chase - as death does. So now, contented indifference before Middlesbrough against Slovan Bratislava coexisted with a craving for an art in which violent, overwhelming, hysterical a.. | loss opera plot | Julian Barnes | |
| 1bae273 | Would you rather tear up your own expressions of love, or the ones you had received? | Julian Barnes | ||
| f56f422 | 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 circumstances, and it will surely appear. And then you are at its mercy. The panic takes some to God, others to despair, some to charitable works, others t.. | Julian Barnes | ||
| d722662 | dh 'rdt 'n tj`l lns yntbhwn lm tqwl,fl trf` Swtk,bl 'khfDh 'kthr:dhk m yjdhb lntbh f`l. | Julian Barnes | ||
| 2fa118d | hdhh l'khyr@ lyst mm r'yth f`ly , lkn m ttdhkrh lys hw blDrwr@ m Hdth. | Julian Barnes | ||
| 0eea8de | lqd njwt"nj ky yHky lHky@"- hdh m yqwlh lns,'lys kdhlk? ltrykh lys 'kdhyb lmntSryn km qlt dht mr@ bbsT@ ljw hnt l'b.'drk lan 'nh 'qrb l'n ykwn dhkryt lnjyn:'wly'k ldhyn lm yntSrw wlm ynhzmw." | Julian Barnes | ||
| bb033e2 | Would you rather love the more, and suffer the more; or love the less and suffer the less? | Julian Barnes | ||
| 31e5478 | kyf yTrHn lzmn 'rD thm ydhhln.kn nZn 'nn nDjyn `ndm kn - fqT - fy 'mn.tkhyln 'nn msw'wlwn lknn kn jbn fHsb.m 'Tlqn `lyh"wq`y@"tbyn 'nh hrwb mn lHqy'q bdl mn mwjhth.lzmn...mnHn lkfy@ mn lzmn wkl qrrtn lmd`wm@ stbdw mrt`sh@,wkl m`tqdtn lmstqr@ stGdw mtqlb@." | Julian Barnes | ||
| b329e93 | In the old days, a child might pay for the sins of the father, or indeed mother. Nowadays, in the most advanced society on earth, the parents might pay for the sins of the child, along with uncles, aunts, cousins, in-laws, colleagues, friends, and even the man who unthinkingly smiled at you as he came out of the lift at three in the morning. The system of retribution had been greatly improved, and was so much more inclusive than it used to .. | Julian Barnes | ||
| 007b22e | fkm 'n ltGyyrt lsysy@ wltrykhy@ mHbT@,fn ltqdm fy l`mr mHbT kdhlk.wkdhlk hy lHy@.'Zn 'Hyn 'n GrD lHy@ hw 'n n`td lkhsrt lnhy'y@,'n tthbt ln 'nh lyst jyd@ km ntSwr wnd`y. | Julian Barnes | ||
| 6d4ef75 | O unico que eu sei: que existe o tempo obxectivo, pero tamen o subxectivo, o que levamos contra o interior do pulso, ao lado de onde se senten os latexos. E este tempo persoal, que e o tempo autentico, midese en funcion da nosa relacion coa memoria. | Julian Barnes | ||
| 4491140 | In those days, we imagined ourselves as being kept in some kind of holding pen, waiting to be released into our lives. And when that moment came, our lives--and time itself--would speed up. How were we to know that our lives had in any case begun, that some advantage had already been gained, some damage already inflicted? Also, that our release would only be into a larger holding pen, whose boundaries would be at first undiscernible. In the.. | Julian Barnes | ||
| b115a8f | This was another skill women were meant to learn: when a man's story had come to an end. Mostly, it wasn't a problem, as the end was thumpingly obvious; or else the narrator started snorting with laughter in advance, which was always a pretty good clue. Martha had long ago decided only to laugh at things she found funny. It seemed a normal sort of rule; but most men found it rebuking. | funny men women | Julian Barnes | |
| cafc037 | But aeronautics purged the sin of height, otherwise known as the sin of getting above yourself. | Julian Barnes | ||
| e6716e8 | You marry to continue the conversation. | Julian Barnes | ||
| 4c4a34a | son of the old woman. They may have had a prearranged plan.' 'How do you mean?' asked Dick, looking puzzled. 'Well - the old woman's son, Dirty Dick, may have known that when the bells rang out, this fellow was making a run for it - and would come to bring him a message. He was to wait in the barn at night if the bells rang, just in case it was Nailer's friend who had escaped.' 'Yes, I see,' said Dick. 'I think you're right. Yes, I'm sure y.. | Enid Blyton | ||
| 4be3452 | ydhshny 'n dhlk rbm ykwn 'Hd lkhtlft lmhm@ byn lshbb wlshykhwkh@,fy shbbn nkhtr` mstqbl mkhtlf l'nfsn,'m fy shykhwkhtn fnn nkhtr` ln mDy mkhtlf. | Julian Barnes | ||
| 2ce606d | Is there anything else ye require, aside from yer freedom and a coach with four white horses to carry ye away from here?" "The horses don't have to be white," she returned. "I'm not particular." | Suzanne Enoch | ||
| b03fdf3 | But there's something about the story of Salem that makes it a Rorschach test for our own vision of history. Some people look back on it as a story about repressed sexual hysteria. Some think it was all about the tensions between the settlers and the Indians. Others see slightly subliminated class warfare. Whatever happened, it was soaked in issues of gender. Women were the beginning and end of the Salem witch-hunt, the first accusers and t.. | Gail Collins |