Julian Barnes
Julian Barnes
Julian Patrick Barnesis an English writer. Barnes won the Man Booker Prize for his book The Sense of an Ending, and three of his earlier books had been shortlisted for the Booker Prize: Flaubert's Parrot, England, England, and Arthur & George. He has also written crime fiction under the pseudonym Dan Kavanagh. In addition to novels, Barnes has published collections of essays and short stories...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth19 January 1946
eye people age
You grew old first not in your own eyes, but in other people's eyes; then, slowly, you agreed with their opinion of you.
opposites common-sense decision
He had a better mind and a more rigorous temperament than me; he thought logically, and then acted on the conclusion of logical thought. Whereas most of us, I suspect, do the opposite: we make an instinctive decision, then build up an infrastructure of reasoning to justify it. And call the result common sense.
genius young fascinated
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.
waiting would-be damage
In those days, we imagined ourselves as being kept in some kind of holding pen, waiting to be released into our lives. And when the 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.
long done moments
You get towards the end of life - no, not life itself, but of something else: the end of any likelihood of change in that life. You are allowed a long moment of pause, time enough to ask the question: what else have I done wrong?
writing people missing
Irony ... may be defined as what people miss.
uplifting self two
You put together two people who have not been put together before; and sometimes the world is changed, sometimes not. They may crash and burn, or burn and crash. But sometimes, something new is made, and then the world is changed. Together, in that first exaltation, that first roaring sense of uplift, they are greater than their two separate selves. Together, they see further, and they see more clearly.
writing fiction world
When you are writing fiction your task is to reflect the fullest complications of the world
depression spring levels
The spring of 1930 marks the end of a period of grave concern...American business is steadily coming back to a normal level of prosperity.
psychics giving afar
To look at ourselves from afar, to make the subjective suddenly objective: this gives us a psychic shock.
lazy reader
There will always be non-readers, bad readers, lazy readers - there always were.
photography love-is magic
Because love is the meeting point of truth and magic. Truth, as in photography; magic, as in ballooning.
grief levels-of-life stories
Every love story is a potential grief story.
children adults negative
Most of us remember adolescence as a kind of double negative: no longer allowed to be children, we are not yet capable of being adults.