707 Quotes by Julian Barnes

The law, and society, and religion all said it was impossible to be sane, healthy, and kill yourself.

Ah, the rheumy-eyed grandpa on the terraces inducting the lad into the mysteries of soccer: how to loathe people wearing different coloured shirts, how to feign injury, how to blow your snot onto the pitch – See, son, you press hard on one nostril to close it, and explode the green stuff out of the other. How to be vain and overpaid and have your best years behind you before you’ve even understood what life’s about. Oh yes, I look forward to taking Lucas to the football. But.

He had entered some state of grace – but one that did not exclude. He made you feel you were his co-thinker, even if you said nothing.

Adrian, however, pushed us to believe in the application of thought to life, in the notion.

Start with the notion that yours is the sole responsibility unless there’s powerful evidence to the contrary.

Perhaps love is essential because it’s unnecessary.

Jake, who is both fitter and more hedonistic than me, once told me what they say about martinis: “One’s perfect. Two’s too many. And three’s not enough.

Never forget, the most vulnerable spot is down the middle.

If asked in a court of law what happened and what was said, I could only attest to the words “heading,” “stagnating” and “peaceable.” I’d never thought of myself as peaceable – or its opposite – until then. I would also swear to the truth of the biscuit tin; it was burgundy red, with the Queen’s smiling profile on it.