707 Quotes by Julian Barnes

There had been addition – and subtraction – in my life, but how much multiplication?

Truth to life, at the start, to be sure; yet once the process gets under way, truth to art is the greater allegiance.

There’s nothing wrong with being a genius who can fascinate the young. Rather, there’s something wrong with the young who can’t be fascinated by a genius.

I can see there might be a positive side to this wilful averting of the eye: ignoring the bad things makes it easier for you to carry on. 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.

Lovers are like Siamese twins, two bodies with a single soul; but if one dies before the other, the survivor has a corpse to lug around.

Logic: yes, where is logic? Where is it, for instance, in the next moment of my story?

People prefer to get what they want rather than what they deserve.

I am death-fearing. I don’t think I’m morbid. That seems to me a fear of death that goes beyond the rational. Whereas it seems to me to be entirely rational to fear death!

To own a certain book – and to choose it without help – is to define yourself.