AtomicQuote

Julian Barnes Quote

Music — good music, great music — had a hard, irreducible purity to it. It might be bitter and despairing and pessimistic, but it could never be cynical. If music is tragic, those with asses’ ears accuse it of being cynical. But when a composer is bitter, or in despair, or pessimistic, that still means he believes in something.

Julian Barnes

Music — good music, great music — had a hard, irreducible purity to it. It might be bitter and despairing and pessimistic, but it could never be cynical. If music is tragic, those with asses’ ears accuse it of being cynical. But when a composer is bitter, or in despair, or pessimistic, that still means he believes in something.

Tags: cynical, cynicism, despair, despairing, music, pessimistic, purity, tragic

Related Quotes

Belief is a wonderful way to pass the time until the facts come in.

Carl R White

Belief is a wonderful way to pass the time until the facts come in.

Tags: aetheism, agnostic, agnostic atheism, agnostic theism, agnosticism, agnostics, allah, almighty, angels, arguments

Some people are in such utter darkness that they will burn you just to see a light. Try not to take it personally.

Kamand Kojouri

Some people are in such utter darkness that they will burn you just to see a light. Try not to take it personally.

Tags: betray, betrayal, bullies, bully, bullying, burn, cheat, cheater, corrupt, cynical

Never shy away from opportunity and wholehearted living. Never be fearful of putting yourself out there. The courageous may encounter many disappointments, experience profound disillusionment, gather...

Anthon St. Maarten

Never shy away from opportunity and wholehearted living. Never be fearful of putting yourself out there. The courageous may encounter many disappointments, experience profound disillusionment, gather...

Tags: bravery, cautious, courageous, cynical, disappointments, disillusionment, divine living, emblem, fearful, fearless

They say the distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success, I believe you can say the same thing about the distance between good and evil.

Carl R White

They say the distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success, I believe you can say the same thing about the distance between good and evil.

Tags: cynical, cynicism, evil, evil men, evil people, genius, genius thinkers, good, good and bad, good and evil

If you're too open-minded your brains will fall out.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

If you're too open-minded your brains will fall out.

Tags: beatnik, cynical, funny, humour

Home? What is home? Home is where a house is that you come back to when the rainy season is about to begin, to wait until the next dry season comes around. Home is where your woman is, that you come b...

Cornell Woolrich

Home? What is home? Home is where a house is that you come back to when the rainy season is about to begin, to wait until the next dry season comes around. Home is where your woman is, that you come b...

Tags: cynical, cynicism, home, loyalty, noir, perfidy, ptsd, soldier, strength, war

I can't bear the thought that a man of lofty mind and heart begins with the ideal of the Madonna and ends with the ideal of Sodom.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I can't bear the thought that a man of lofty mind and heart begins with the ideal of the Madonna and ends with the ideal of Sodom.

Tags: cynic, cynical, cynicism, disappointment, idealism, innocence, sodom

Do you know what happens when you play a country song backwards? You get your wife back, your dog back and your job back.

Richard Belzer

Do you know what happens when you play a country song backwards? You get your wife back, your dog back and your job back.

Tags: back, country, cynical, cynical humor, dog, funny, humor, job, music, mystery

Cynical realism is the intelligent man's best excuse for doing nothing in an intolerable situation.

Aldous Huxley

Cynical realism is the intelligent man's best excuse for doing nothing in an intolerable situation.

Tags: best, man, intelligent, cynical

The pessimist reason that things just happen, where the optimist believe that things happen for a reason.

Anthony Liccione

The pessimist reason that things just happen, where the optimist believe that things happen for a reason.

Tags: cynical, doubters, enthusiasm and attitude, find answers, give meaning, hopeful, hopeless, influence, justify, logic
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.