“ You see—I hope you never get there yourself—but some of us get to the point in life where we realise that nothing matters. Nothing fucking matters. Julian Barnes
“ From love's absolutism to love's absolution? No: I don't believe in the cosy narratives of life some find necessary, just as I choke on comforting words like redemption and closure. Death is the only… Julian Barnes
“ Sit yourself down, Joan instructed as we reached the the fag-fogged, gin-scented den that was nominally her sitting room. Julian Barnes
“ So. I see where you're going—bus number 27 to a crossroads near Delphi. Look, I did not want, at any point, on any level, to kill my own father and sleep with my own mother. It's true that I wanted to… Julian Barnes
“ Nowadays, at the other end of life, I have a rule of thumb about whether or not two people are having an affair: if you think they might be, then they definitely are. Julian Barnes
“ My parents' marriage, to my unforgiving nineteen-year-old eye, was a car crash of cliché. Though I would have to admit, as the one making the judgement, that a 'car crash of of cliché' is itself a cli… Julian Barnes
“ He knew what they said of him locally: Oh, he likes to keep himself to himself. The phrase was descriptive, not judgemental. It was a principle of life the English still respected. And it wasn't just… Julian Barnes
“ Because once you had been through certain things, their presence inside you never really disappeared. Julian Barnes
“ You're still in it. You'll always be in it. No, not literally. But in your heart. Nothing ever ends, not if it's gone that deep. You'll always be walking wounded. That's the only choice, after a while… Julian Barnes
“ And even when he guessed that the love stories of the misled and the forsaken had become a little less authentic with each retelling . . . even if this was the case, he was still moved. Indeed, he was… Julian Barnes
“ So (and this would have happened earlier, but I am only remembering it now): I am visiting her one afternoon. Julian Barnes
“ We're leaving, I told her one July afternoon.We? You and I? Where are we going, young Master Paul? Do you have your belongings tied up in a red-spotted handkerchief on a stick? Julian Barnes
“ And perhaps I I didn't even understand the young when I was young. That could be true too. Julian Barnes
“ Love means never having to say you're sorry (on the contrary, it frequently means doing just precisely that). Then there were all those love lines from all those love songs, with the swooning delusion… Julian Barnes
“ And first love always happens in the overwhelming first person. How can it not? Also, in the overwhelming present tense. It takes us time to realise that there are other persons, and other tenses. Julian Barnes
“ She has only a ghostplay on some frayed screen of memory, which she takes to be the present. Julian Barnes
“ It is only a metaphor—or the worst of dreams; yet there are metaphors which sit more powerfully in the brain than remembered events. Julian Barnes
“ Susan had pointed out that everyone has their love story. Even if it was a fiasco, even if it fizzled out, never got going, had all been in the mind to begin with: that didn't make it any the less rea… Julian Barnes
