Julian Barnes Quotes About Age

Quotes about: Age

• 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.

  Julian Barnes

  Past, Differences, Age

• Is despair wrong? Isn’t it the natural condition of life after a certain age? … After a number of events, what is there left but repetition and diminishment? Who wants to go on living? The eccentric, the religious, the artistic (sometimes); those with a false sense of their own worth. Soft cheeses collapse; firm cheeses endurate. Both go mouldy.

  Julian Barnes

  Religious, Numbers, Despair

  Julian Barnes (1985). “Flaubert's parrot”, Alfred a Knopf Inc

• Though why should we expect age to mellow us? If it isn't life's business to reward merit, why should it be life's business to give us warm comfortable feelings towards its end? What possible evolutionary purpose could nostalgia serve?

  Julian Barnes

  Giving, Feelings, Age

• When we're young, everyone over the age of thirty looks middle-aged, everyone over fifty antique. And time, as it goes by, confirms that we weren't that wrong. Those little age differentials, so crucial and so gross when we are young erode. We end up all belonging to the same category, that of the non-young. I've never much minded this myself.

  Julian Barnes

  Age, Looks, Fifty

• And if you had no tongue, no celebrating language, you’d do this: cross your hands at the wrist with palms facing towards you; place your crossed wrists over your heart (the middle of your chest, anyway); then move your hands outwards a short distance, and open them towards the object of your love. It’s just as eloquent as speech.

  Julian Barnes

  Love, Distance, Moving

• You grew old first not in your own eyes, but in other people's eyes; then, slowly, you agreed with their opinion of you.

  Julian Barnes

  Eye, People, Age

  Julian Barnes (1986). “Staring at the sun”, Jonathan Cape

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