If a man cannot tell what he wants to do, then he must find out what he ought to do. If desire has become complicated, then hold fast to duty. Julian Barnes More Quotes by Julian Barnes More Quotes From Julian Barnes And that was all the part of it - the way you were obliged to live. You stifled a groan, you lied about your love, you deceived your legal wife, and all in the name of honour. That was the damned paradox of it - in order to behave well, you have to behave badly. Julian Barnes names love-you order Well, to be honest I think I tell less truth when I write journalism than when I write fiction. Julian Barnes writing fiction thinking Well, they each seem to do one thing well enough, but fail to realize that literature depends on doing several things well at the same time. Julian Barnes realizing literature writing Grief reconfigures time, its length, its texture, its function: one day means no more than the next, so why have they been picked out and given separate names? Julian Barnes grief names mean WHORES. Necessary in the nineteenth century for the contraction of syphilis, without which no one could claim genius. Julian Barnes syphilis century genius Alice Munro can move characters through time in a way that no other writer can. Julian Barnes character way moving A couple's first task, it has always seemed to me, is to solve the problem of breakfast; if this can be worked out amicably, most other difficulties can too. Julian Barnes tasks couple breakfast People in love, it is well known, suffer extreme conceptual delusions, the most common of these being that other people find your condition as thrilling and eye-watering as you do yourselves. Julian Barnes eye suffering people The writer's life [is] full of frailty and defeat like any other life. What counts is the work. Yet the work can quite easily be buried, or half-buried, by the life. Julian Barnes defeat half life-is Perhaps love is essential because it's unnecessary. Julian Barnes perhaps-love essentials love-is I'm a complete democrat in terms of who buys my books. Julian Barnes democrat term book I'm a novelist, so I can't write about ideas unless they're attached to people. Julian Barnes writing people ideas You can define a net two ways, depending on your point of view. Normally you would say it is a meshed instrument designed to catch fish. But you could, with no great injury to logic, reverse the image and define the net as a jocular lexicographer once did: he called it a collection of holes tied together with string. Julian Barnes views together two In an oppressive society the truth-telling nature of literature is of a different order, and sometimes valued more highly than other elements in a work of art. Julian Barnes different order art Wisdom consists partly in not pretending anymore, in discarding artifice. Julian Barnes artifice pretending It took me some years to clear my head of what Paris wanted me to admire about it, and to notice what I preferred instead. Not power-ridden monuments, but individual buildings which tell a quieter story: the artist's studio, or the Belle Epoque house built by a forgotten financier for a just-remembered courtesan. Julian Barnes paris artist years Sometimes you find the panel, but it doesn’t open; sometimes it opens, and your gaze meets nothing but a mouse skeleton. But at least you’ve looked. That’s the real distinction between people: not between those who have secrets and those who don’t, but between those who want to know everything and those who don’t. This search is a sign of love I maintain. Julian Barnes skeletons real people History isn't what happened, history is just what historians tell us. Julian Barnes historian happened Reading and life are not separate but symbiotic. And for this serious task of imaginative discovery and self-discovery, there is and remains one perfect symbol: the printed book. Julian Barnes reading discovery book One of the troubles is this: the heart isn't heart-shaped. Julian Barnes trouble heart
