Quotes by Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot

Explore a curated collection of 34 quotes by Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot. Discover timeless wisdom, insightful thoughts, and memorable words that have inspired readers around the world. Browse through the gallery below and click on any quote to read more.

Books say: She did this because. Life says: She did this. Books are where things are explained to you; life is where thi — Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot
To be stupid, and selfish, and to have good health are the three requirements for happiness - though if stupidity is lac — Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot
Remember the botched brothel-visit in L’Education sentimentale and remember its lesson. Do not participate: happiness li — Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot
Is despair wrong? Isn’t it the natural condition of life after a certain age? … After a number of events, what is there — Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot
Everything you invent is true: you can be sure of that. Poetry is a subject as precise as geometry. — Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot
The writer must be universal in sympathy and an outcast by nature: only then can he see clearly. — Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot
The best life for a writer is the life which helps him write the best books he can. — Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot
Everything in art depends on execution: the story of a louse can be as beautiful as the story of Alexander. You must wri — Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot
If the writer were more like a reader, he’d be a reader, not a writer. It’s as uncomplicated as that. — Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot
What is the easiest, the most comfortable thing for a writer to do? To congratulate the society in which he lives: to ad — Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot
The imagination doesn’t crop annually like a reliable fruit tree. The writer has to gather whatever’s there: sometimes t — Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot
He feared me as many men fear women: because their mistresses (or their wives) understand them. They are scarcely adult, — Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot
[Flaubert] didn’t just hate the railway as such; he hated the way it flattered people with the illusion of progress. Wha — Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot
Women scheme when they are weak, they lie out of fear. Men scheme when they are strong, they lie out of arrogance. — Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot
Pride makes us long for a solution to things – a solution, a purpose, a final cause; but the better telescopes become, t — Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot
The greatest patriotism is to tell your country when it is behaving dishonorably, foolishly, viciously. — Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot
The best form of government is one that is dying, because that means it’s giving way to something else. — Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot
Loving humanity means as much, and as little, as loving raindrops, or loving the Milky Way. You say that you love humani — Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot
Life … is a bit like reading. … If all your responses to a book have already been duplicated and expanded upon by a prof — Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot
(on grief) And you do come out of it, that’s true. After a year, after five. But you don’t come out of it like a train c — Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot