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 (The Sense of an Ending)
History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation.
— Julian Barnes (The Sense of an Ending)
What was the point of having a situation worthy of fiction if the protagonist didn’t behave as he would have done in a book?
— Julian Barnes (The Sense of an Ending)
the key to a happy family life was for there not to be a family – or at least, not one living together.
— Julian Barnes (The Sense of an Ending)
What you end up remembering isn’t always the same as what you have witnessed.
— Julian Barnes (The Sense of an Ending)
