Quotes By Author: julian barnes

“Love may not lead where we think or hope, but regardless of outcome it should be a call to seriousness and truth. If it is not that – if it is not moral in its effect – than love is no more than an exaggerated form of pleasure.”

“Part of love is preparing for death. You feel confirmed in your love when she dies. You got it right. This is part of it all.”

“Things, once gone, can’t be put back; he knew that now. A punch, once delivered, can’t be withdrawn. Words, once spoken, can’t be unsaid. We may go on as if nothing has been lost, nothing done, nothing said; we may claim to forget it all; but our innermost core doesn’t forget, because we have been changed for ever.”

“Well, they each seem to do one thing well enough, but fail to realize that literature depends on doing several things well at the same time.”

“The better you know someone, the less well you often see them (and the less well they can therefore be transferred into fiction). They may be so close as to be out of focus, and there is no operating novelist to dispel the blur. ”