Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot

Quotes

• “Is despair wrong? Isn’t it the natural condition of life after a certain age? … After a number of events, what is there ...”
• “He feared me as many men fear women: because their mistresses (or their wives) understand them. They are scarcely adult,...”
• “Books say: She did this because. Life says: She did this. Books are where things are explained to you; life is where thi...”
• “[Flaubert] didn’t just hate the railway as such; he hated the way it flattered people with the illusion of progress. Wha...”
• “Remember the botched brothel-visit in L’Education sentimentale and remember its lesson. Do not participate: happiness li...”
• “Books say: She did this because. Life says: She did this. Books are where things are explained to you; life is where thi...”
• “To be stupid, and selfish, and to have good health are the three requirements for happiness - though if stupidity is lac...”
• “Pride makes us long for a solution to things – a solution, a purpose, a final cause; but the better telescopes become, t...”
• “The writer must be universal in sympathy and an outcast by nature: only then can he see clearly.”