Frases de Julian Barnes

“Vivimos a ras de suelo, en lo llano, y sin embargo aspiramos a elevarnos […] Algunos se elevan por medio del arte, otros con la religión; la mayoría, con el amor. Pero al elevarnos también podemos caer en picado […] Cada historia de amor es en potencia una historia de aflicción. Si no al principio, más tarde. Si no para uno, para el otro. A veces para ambos”

“Sabía ya que sólo las viejas palabras servían: muerte, congoja, tristeza, pesar, sufrimiento. Nada moderadamente evasivo o medicinal. La aflicción es un estado humano, no médico, y aunque haya píldoras que nos ayuden a olvidarla - y todo lo demás -, no hay pastillas que la curen. Los afligidos no están deprimidos, sino solo debidamente, adecuada, matemáticamente tristes.”

“Y no obstante, a pesar de todo esto, a pesar de que no tenía rival en la descripción de tiranos hundidos en sangre hasta las rodillas, Shakespeare era un poco ingenuo. Porque sus monstruos tenían dudas, malos sueños, punzadas de remordimientos de conciencia. Veían alzarse ante ellos a los espectros de los que habían asesinado. Pero en la vida real, bajo un terror real, ¿qué conciencia culpable? ¿Qué malos sueños? Todo eso era sentimentalismo, falso optimismo, la esperanza de que el mundo sería como queremos que sea en vez de como es. Qué pocos de los que cortaban la leña y hacían que volaran las astillas, de los que fumaban Belomor sentados antes sus escritorios en la Casa Grande, de los que firmaban las órdenes y hacían las llamadas por teléfono, cerrando un expediente y con él poniendo fin a una vida, qué pocos de ellos tenían malos sueños o veían alguna vez alzarse a los espectros de los muertos para reprochárselo.”

“Los directores de este tipo gritaban y maldecían a las orquestas, montaban escenas, amenazaban con despedir al clarinete principal por llegar tarde. Y la orquesta, obligada a aguantarlo, replicaba contando cosas a espaldas del director, historias que lo definían como un "auténtico personaje". Después llegaban a creer lo que creía este emperador de la batuta: que sólo tocaban bien porque los estaban azotando. Se apelotonaban en un rebaño masoquista, de vez en cuando soltaban un comentario irónico entre sí, pero esencialmente admiraban a su guía por su nobleza y su idealismo, por la meta que se había propuesto y su capacidad de visión, más amplia que la de quienes se limitaban a raspar y soplar delante de sus atriles. Por muy áspero que pudiese ser por necesidad cada cierto tiempo, el maestro era un gran dirigente al que debían seguir. Ahora, ¿quién continuaría negando que una orquesta era un microcosmos de la sociedad?”

“Los libros dicen: ella hizo esto porque. La vida dice: ella hizo esto. Los libros son donde se explican las cosas; la vida es la ausencia de la explicación. No me sorprende que algunas personas prefieran los libros.”

“You put together two things that have not been put together before. And the world is changed…”

“What makes us want to know the worst? Is it that we tire of preferring to know the best? Does curiosity always hurdle self-interest? Or is it, more simply, that wanting to know the worst is love's favorite perversion.”

“Books say: She did this because. Life says: She did this. Books are where things are explained to you; life is where things aren't. I'm not surprised some people prefer books.”

“This was another of our fears: that Life wouldn't turn out to be like Literature.”

“History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation.”

“What you end up remembering isn't always the same as what you have witnessed.”

“It strikes me that this may be one of the differences between youth and age: when we are young, we invent different futures for ourselves; when we are old, we invent different pasts for others.”

“Women scheme when they are weak, they lie out of fear. Men scheme when they are strong, they lie out of arrogance.”

“To be stupid, and selfish, and to have good health are the three requirements for happiness - though if stupidity is lacking, the others are useless.”

“The greatest patriotism is to tell your country when it is behaving dishonorably, foolishly, viciously.”

“Yes, of course we were pretentious -- what else is youth for?”

“Sometimes I think the purpose of life is to reconcile us to its eventual loss by wearing us down, by proving, however long it takes, that life isn't all it's cracked up to be.”

“Women were brought up to believe that men were the answer. They weren't. They weren't even one of the questions.”

“History isn't the lies of the victors, as I once glibly assured Old Joe Hunt; I know that now. It's more the memories of the survivors, most of whom are neither victorious or defeated.”

“The writer must be universal in sympathy and an outcast by nature: only then can he see clearly.”

“I had wanted life not to bother me too much, and had succeeded - and how pitiful that was.”

“When we fall in love, we hope - both egotistically and altruistically - that we shall be finally, truly seen: judged and approved. Of course, love does not always bring approval: being seen may just as well lead to a thumbs-down and a season in hell.”

“And yet it takes only the smallest pleasure or pain to teach us time’s malleability.”

“That's one of the central problems of history, isn't it, sir? The question of subjective versus objective interpretation, the fact that we need to know the history of the historian in order to understand the version that is being put in front of us.”

“The more you learn, the less you fear. "Learn" not in the sense of academic study, but in the practical understanding of life.”

“I thought of the things that had happened to me over the years, and of how little I had made happen.”

“A pier is a disappointed bridge; yet stare at it for long enough and you can dream it to the other side of the Channel.”

“I don't believe in God, but I miss him.”

“Perhaps love is essential because it's unnecessary.”

“Memories of childhood were the dreams that stayed with you after you woke.”

“When you read a great book, you don't escape from life, you plunge deeper into it.”

“We thought we were being mature when we were only being safe. We imagined we were being responsible but were only being cowardly. What we called realism turned out to be a way of avoiding things rather than facing them.”

“Every love story is a potential grief story.”

“Later on in life, you expect a bit of rest, don't you? You think you deserve it. I did, anyway. But then you begin to understand that the reward of merit is not life's business.”