Pat Barker Quotes

• Another person's life, observed from the outside, always has a shape and definition that one's own life lacks.

  Pat Barker

  Shapes, Definitions, Persons

  46 Copy quote

• It's the hardest thing in the world to go on being aware of someone else's pain.

  Pat Barker

  Pain, Empathy, Goes On

  15 Copy quote

• You know you're walking around with a mask on, and you desperately want to take it off and you can't because everybody else thinks it's your face.

  Pat Barker

  Thinking, Want, Faces

  Pat Barker (1993). “Regeneration”, p.226, Penguin

  11 Copy quote

• The past is a palimpsest. Early memories are always obscured by accumulations of later knowledge.

  Pat Barker

  Memories, Past, Palimpsest

  Pat Barker (1996). “The Regeneration Trilogy”, Gardners Books

  8 Copy quote

• Looking straight at the world is part of your duty as a writer.

  Pat Barker

  World, Duty

  "Dispatches from the front". Interview with Maya Jaggi, www.theguardian.com. August 15, 2003.

  7 Copy quote

• Cut a chrysalis open, and you will find a rotting caterpillar. What you will never find is that mythical creature, half caterpillar, half butterfly, a fit emblem for the human soul, for those whose cast of mind leads them to seek such emblems. No, the process of transformation consists almost entirely of decay.

  Pat Barker

  Butterfly, Cutting, Soul

  16 Copy quote

• Fiction should be about moral dilemmas that are so bloody difficult that the author doesn't know the answer. What I hate in fiction is when the author knows better than the characters what they should do.

  Pat Barker

  Hate, Character, Fiction

  "Double vision". Interview with Susanna Rustin, www.theguardian.com. June 30, 2007.

  8 Copy quote

• A society that devours its own young deserves no automatic or unquestioning allegiance.

  Pat Barker

  Allegiance, Young, Deserve

  Pat Barker (1996). “The Regeneration Trilogy”, Gardners Books

  4 Copy quote

• Culturally, the First World War is the war that stands in for other wars.

  Pat Barker

  War, World, Firsts

  5 Copy quote

• Half the world's work is done by hopeless neurotics.

  Pat Barker

  Done, Half, World

  Pat Barker (2013). “The Ghost Road”, p.60, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

• We are Craiglockhart's success stories. Look at us. We don't remember, we don't feel, we don't think - at least beyond the confines of what's needed to do the job. By any proper civilized standard (but what does that mean now?) we are objects of horror. But our nerves are completely steady. And we are still alive.

  Pat Barker

  Jobs, Mean, Thinking

  7 Copy quote

• I don't think it's possible to c-call yourself a C-Christian and... and j-just leave out the awkward bits.' -Wilfred Owen

  Pat Barker

  Christian, Thinking, Awkward

  6 Copy quote

• The sky darkened, the air grew colder, but he didn't mind. It didn't occur to him to move. This was the right place. This was where he had wanted to be.

  Pat Barker

  Moving, Air, Sky

  Pat Barker (1996). “The Regeneration Trilogy”, Gardners Books

  4 Copy quote

• Murder is only killing in the wrong place.

  Pat Barker

  Murder, Killing

  Pat Barker (2013). “The Ghost Road”, p.30, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

• The way I see it, when you put the uniform on, in effect you sign a contract. And you don't back out of a contract merely because you've changed your mind. You can still speak up for your principles, you can still argue against the ones you're being made to fight for, but in the end you do the job.

  Pat Barker

  Jobs, Fighting, Mind

  Pat Barker (1993). “Regeneration”, p.27, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

• Sometimes, in the trenches, you get the sense of something, ancient. One trench we held, it had skulls in the side, embedded, like mushrooms. It was actually easier to believe they were men from Marlborough's army, than to think they'd been alive a year ago. It was as if all the other wars had distilled themselves into this war, and that made it something you almost can't challenge. It's like a very deep voice, saying; 'Run along, little man, be glad you've survived

  Pat Barker

  Running, War, Believe

  4 Copy quote

• The result was I went nowhere.

  Pat Barker

  Results

  Pat Barker (1993). “Regeneration”, p.38, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

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