Julian Barnes Quote

I used to think I knew all the answers...That's why I left. I know what to do, I thought. Perhaps you have to persuade yourself you know the answers, otherwise you don't ever do anything. I thought I knew the answers when I married--or at least, I thought I was going to find them out. I thought I knew the answers when I left. Now I'm not sure. Or rather, I know the answers to different things now. Perhaps that's it: we're only capable of knowing the answers to a certain number of things at any particular time.

Julian Barnes

I used to think I knew all the answers...That's why I left. I know what to do, I thought. Perhaps you have to persuade yourself you know the answers, otherwise you don't ever do anything. I thought I knew the answers when I married--or at least, I thought I was going to find them out. I thought I knew the answers when I left. Now I'm not sure. Or rather, I know the answers to different things now. Perhaps that's it: we're only capable of knowing the answers to a certain number of things at any particular time.

Related Quotes

About Julian Barnes

Julian Patrick Barnes (born 19 January 1946) is an English writer. He won the Man Booker Prize in 2011 with The Sense of an Ending, having been shortlisted three times previously with Flaubert's Parrot, England, England, and Arthur & George. Barnes has also written crime fiction under the pseudonym Dan Kavanagh (having married Pat Kavanagh). In addition to novels, Barnes has published collections of essays and short stories, as well as two memoirs and a nonfiction book, The Man in the Red Coat, about people of Belle Époque Paris in the arts.
In 2004, he became a Commandeur of L'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. His honours also include the Somerset Maugham Award and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. He was awarded the 2021 Jerusalem Prize.