Barnes Quotes

Aldus Barnes, a structural engineer by training and member of the Advanced Geometry Unit (AGU) at Arup, has formed many successful collaborations and earned a prominent place for himself in architecture by adopting the language and skills of architects. "Talk in terms of texture and density, instead of torsion and shear. That way they don't think you are just another nerd," Barnes advises the young members of his team. ~ Yanni Alexander Loukissas

My train was late, slowed by the usual Sunday engineering work. I got home in the early evening. I remember that I had a bloody good long shit. ~ Julian Barnes

They only trusted the wisdom of people brighter and more worldly than themselves when it was expressed in the vocabulary and style of rural idiots. In his guise as Brazenydol, he had once had a contract with DARPA to teach a team of physicists the basic terminology of tractor pulls so that they could give an acceptable explanation of omniwavelength stealth to a Congressional committee that didn't understand tractor pulls, either. ~ John Barnes

How do you know when you're God?" "When I pray to him I find I am talking to myself. ~ Peter Barnes

But that was the nature of relationships: there always seemed to be an imbalance of one sort of another. And it was fine to plan an emotional strategy, but another thing when the ground opened up in front of you, and your defending troops toppled into a ravine which hadn't been marked on the map until a few seconds previously. ~ Julian Barnes

I was outnumbered, unarmed, weak, and screwed. In that order. ~ Jennifer Lynn Barnes

In Nora's heart lay the fossil of Robin, intaglio of her identity, and about it for its maintenance ran Nora's blood. Thus the body of Robin could never be unloved, corrupt or put away. Robin was now beyond timely changes, except in the blood that animated her. ~ Djuna Barnes

I told Vivvie what the person who'd answered had said, verbatim. ~ Jennifer Lynn Barnes

My own [story] is the simplest ... it hardly amounts to more than a convincing proof of my existence - and yet I find it the hardest to begin. ~ Julian Barnes

There are people out there who get annoyed at the story that Djuna barnes, rather than identify as a lesbian, preferred to say that she 'just loved Thelma.' Gertrude Stein reputedly made similar claims, albeit not in those exact terms, about Alice. I get why it's politically maddening, but I've also always thought it a little romantic - the romance of letting an individual experience of desire take precedence over a categorical one. ~ Maggie Nelson

Even the contemplative life is only an effort, Nora my dear, to hide the body so the feet won't stick out. ~ Djuna Barnes

I'm a basketball player, not a monk. ~ Marvin Barnes

All's fair in love and war--and black ops. ~ Jennifer Lynn Barnes

The best life for a writer is the life which helps him write the best books he can. ~ Julian Barnes

Once bitten, twice shy; twice bitten, forever shy. ~ Julian Barnes

I am death-fearing. I don't think I'm morbid. That seems to me a fear of death that goes beyond the rational. Whereas it seems to me to be entirely rational to fear death! ~ Julian Barnes

Irony ... may be defined as what people miss. ~ Julian Barnes

We changed the names of our technical schools to colleges, we expanded the eligibility for HOPE scholarships for technical training, and we added some formula funding. ~ Roy Barnes

WHORES.
Necessary in the nineteenth century for the contraction of syphilis, without which no one could claim genius. ~ Julian Barnes

There's an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer that I've been thinking about a lot while writing this essay. In it, Buffy sacrifices her own life to save her sister, and right before she does, she tells her sister that the hardest thing to do in the world is to live - ironic words coming from someone about to kill herself for the greater good. As I'm writing this, I just keep thinking that Katniss never gets to sacrifice herself. She doesn't get the heroic death. She survives - and that leaves her doing the hardest thing in the world: living in it once so many of the ones she loves are gone. ~ Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Sleep democratizes fear. The terror of a lost shoe or a missed train are as great here as those of guerrilla attack or nuclear war. ~ Julian Barnes

Come and share a pot of tea,
my home is warm and my friendship's free. ~ Emilie Barnes

Greater is he who suffers through the pain and comes through the other side improved. Greater is he who accepts discouragement and keeps forward momentum, never retreating. Greater is he who sees the light at the end of the tunnel and keeps their eye on the light. Greater is he who gets knocked off his feet and gets back up, dusts himself off and gets back in the fight. Life is tough, but you are stronger. ~ Rich Barnes

We're all liars sometimes. ~ Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Life versus Death becomes, as Montaigne pointed out, Old Age versus Death. ~ Julian Barnes

The werewolf Senate hadn't been happy with the idea of a human alpha, and there wasn't a day that went by that I didn't think about the fact that I had something most male Weres wanted very, very badly ... Maddy. Lake. Lily, Katie, Sloane, Avie, Sophie ... ~ Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Naturalness onstage is just as much an artifice as naturalism in the novel ~ Julian Barnes

Indeed, a consequence of color-blind racial ideology is that, because it implies that race is a bad thing, it also implies that those who identify as raced - that is, people of color - are thus morally inferior to those who do not - that is, White people. Thus it reinforces the supremacy of whiteness even as it renders whiteness invisible. ~ Chanequa Walker-Barnes

A question from the floor: are there tribes whose lexicon lacks the words 'I love you'? Or have they all died out. ~ Julian Barnes

Centered, open, and diverse, the universes correspondence to your hopes and dreams is the deliverance of your foremost thoughts and actions. Energetically you can create and destroy your immediate set of circumstances under the same laws. Posed as friends and foes, you will have obstacles, ones in which you must go through, over, under and aside sometimes to overcome. These are the stepping stones to your future reality. Overcome that which has weakened your state of mind and conquer the thoughts and actions that you have let lead your life. ~ Will Barnes

Life always refused simplicity. ~ Julian Barnes

An image is a stop the mind makes between uncertainties. ~ Djuna Barnes

We Americans" is a fabrication of the rulers. There are the tens and tens and tens of millions of workers and farmers in the United States; we are part of a "we" with our class brothers and sisters throughout the world. There is a "they": the tiny handful of propertied families in whose interests the imperialist United States government acts at home and abroad. It is "they," their state, that "we" must overthrow in order to end imperialism's inexorable advance toward deepening crisis, violence, brutality, and devastation - toward fascism and world war. ~ Jack Barnes

why is it so hard when i have to but so easy when i want to ~ Sondra Anice Barnes

OUR LIVES ARE MADE OF RISKS AND REWARDS. OUR ENDEAVOURS, LOVES, AND HOPES ARE ALL PRONE TO THE GREAT RISK OF FAILURE. YET TO RISK NOTHING FOR FEAR OF FAILURE IS TO LIVE IN A SHUTTERED BOX IN A WORLD WHOSE WONDERS YOU WILL NEVER KNOW. ~ Mark T. Barnes

If asked in a court of law what happened and what was said, I could only attest to the words "heading," "stagnating" and "peaceable." I'd never thought of myself as peaceable - or its opposite - until then. I would also swear to the truth of the biscuit tin; it was burgundy red, with the Queen's smiling profile on it. ~ Julian Barnes

It's your favorite person."
"No. You're not."
"I won't embarrass you by proving I am. ~ Jennifer Lynn Barnes

In the distance we could hear one of the dogs barking at a fish, and the high whine and low rumble of the glacier, and way off, the sound of our mother calling. ~ Susan Barnes

Did you know that there is no exact rhyme in the Russian language for the word 'pravda'? Ponder and weigh this insufficiency in your mind. Doesn't that just echo down the canyons of your soul? ~ Julian Barnes

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

I tell you, Madame, if one gave birth to a heart on a plate, it would say "Love" and twitch like the lopped leg of a frog. ~ Djuna Barnes

Someone tried to kill me, and I'm going swimming. I'm going swimming, because it doesn't matter. I'm going swimming, because I don't matter. I'm going swimming, because that's what Claires do. We swim and we daydream and we read and we wait for someone to care, and they never, ever, ever do. ~ Jennifer Lynn Barnes

If you look at the last decade of global temperature, it's not increasing, ~ John Barnes

It is quite possible that, even if you set the most relevant, realistic goals, you may not achieve them in the way or the time you wanted to. Life may throw something unexpected in your path, which stops you from achieving what you want, when you want. This is not failure. Feeling like you have failed is bound to lead to low mood, and can often come about if things haven't quite gone according to plan. However, the best thing to do is to draw a mental line under the experience, learn from what has happened and try again. As long as you are still trying, you are working towards your long-term aims; and as long as you are doing that, you are never truly failing. ~ Anna Barnes

There is a grotesquerie to grief as well. You lose the sense of your existence being rational, or justifiable. You feel absurd. ~ Julian Barnes

One of my dad's colleagues said, "She wants to paint with her shit. Maybe we should give her paints." And it worked.' Mary Barnes eventually became a celebrated and much-exhibited artist. Her paintings were greatly admired throughout the 1960s and 1970s for illustrating the mad, colourful, painful, exuberant, complicated inner life of a schizophrenic. ~ Jon Ronson

I thought of the things that had happened to me over the years, and of how little I had made happen. ~ Julian Barnes

Young, middle-aged, elderly, old, dead: this was how life conjugated. (No, life was a noun, so this is how life declined. Yes, that was better in any case, life declined. ~ Julian Barnes

I often talk with other actors about that time when you've just finished a job, because I think you do take on the characteristics of some of the characters you play. Sometimes it can be a great thing and sometimes it's a bit haunting because you're not quite sure how to leave it on set. My dad talks about it as being 'de-personalised.' ~ Ben Barnes

It's the little details in life that make all the difference. ~ Emilie Barnes

Life, the permission to know death. ~ Djuna Barnes

If a man cannot tell what he wants to do, then he must find out what he ought to do. If desire has become complicated, then hold fast to duty. ~ Julian Barnes

Sometimes, there aren't any good choices. Sometimes, making the right one is hard ... It's funny, but when you think about it, we're all broken. That's what life does. It knocks you down and breaks you and you either get back up again, or you don't. You either do things on your terms, or you don't. You let the bad things win, or you don't."
"You either let it break you, or you don't. ~ Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Programs has a temporary results leading to nothingness, and the Gospel the brings the result of Eternal life. ~ Tommie Scott

You can put it another way, of course; you always can. ~ Julian Barnes

Consider me an open book" dev said. "Mi casa es su casa." Dev crinkled his nose and smelled the air. "Err, mi nose es su nose. ~ Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Your statistical track record for decision-making is somewhat concerning. ~ Jennifer Lynn Barnes

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. ~ Julian Barnes

I thought of writing books myself once. I had the ideas; I even made notes. But I was a doctor, married with children. You can only do one thing well: Flaubert knew that. ~ Julian Barnes

Perhaps I just feel safer with the history that's been more or less agreed upon. ~ Julian Barnes

We could not be further from ballooning's established tropes: freedom, spiritual exaltation, human progress. Redon's eternally open eye is deeply unsettling. The eye in the sky; God's security camera. And that lumpish human head invites us to conclude that the colonisation of space doesn't purify the colonisers; all that has happened is that we have brought our sinfulness to a new location. ~ Julian Barnes

Jack Peyton is HOT!" someone from the audience yelled.
"Toby Klein is HOTTER" a male voice argued, and I almost went into an epileptic fit of disgust at both the words and the tone.
"Now, now," Jack said, raising his hands. "Don't be ridiculous. Mr. Corkin is clearly the hottest ~ Jennifer Lynn Barnes

I suppose the truth is that, yes, I'm not odd enough not to have done the things I've ended up doing with my life. ~ Julian Barnes

He thought of trying to explain something he had recently noticed about himself: that if anyone insulted him, or one of his friends, he didn't really mind
or not much, anyway. Whereas if anyone insulted a novel, a story, a poem that he loved, something visceral and volcanic occurred within him. He wasn't sure what this might mean
except perhaps that he had got life and art mixed up, back to front, upside down. ~ Julian Barnes

It seemed such a brief while ago that they were all laughing at Professor Nikolayev's definition of a musicologist. Imagine we are eating scrambled eggs, the Professor used to say. My cook, Pasha, has prepared them, and you and I are eating them. Along comes a man who has not prepared them and is not eating them, but he talks about them as if he knows everything about them - that is a musicologist. ~ Julian Barnes

Some of the freckles I once loved are now closer to liver spots. But it's still the eyes we look at, isn't it? That's where we found the other person, and find them still. ~ Julian Barnes

An artist paints his own reality. ~ Ernie Barnes

Why do we invent the monster as a metaphor? Surely all we need do is witness our own cruelty to each other to see the real face of evil. ~ Mark T. Barnes

I had no weapons. No plan. Nothing but my blood and my hands. They were coming, and there were more of them than I'd realized. ~ Jennifer Lynn Barnes

These days, it seems like you can't throw a fish in a bookstore without hitting a high-stakes love triangle
not that I recommend the throwing of fish in bookstores, mind you, as it certainly annoys the booksellers, not to mention the fish ... ~ Jennifer Lynn Barnes

There should be a background check every time a firearm is transferred. You shouldn't be able to go to a gun show and buy guns without a background check. There are Internet gun sales, classified ads in the newspapers - and you can buy guns without background checks. ~ Michael D. Barnes

One feeling at least grows stronger in me with each year that passes - a longing to see the cranes. At this time of year I stand on a hill and watch the sky. Today they did not come. There were only wild geese. Geese would be beautiful if cranes did not exist. ~ Julian Barnes

With a tension in his stomach, such as one suffers when watching an acrobat leaving the virtuosity of his safety in a mad unraveling whirl into probable death, Felix watched the hand descend, take up the note, and disappear into the limbo of the doctor's pocket. He knew that he would continue to like the doctor, though he was aware that it would be in spite of a long series of convulsions of the spirit, analogous to the displacement in the fluids of the oyster, that must cover its itch with a peal: so he would have to cover the doctor. He knew at the same time that this stricture of acceptance (by which what we must love is made into what we can love) would eventually be a part of himself, though originally brought on by no will of his own. ~ Djuna Barnes

I don't see why people want new plays all the time. What would happen to concerts if people wanted new music all the time? ~ Clive Barnes

Very few of my characters are based on people I've known. It is too constricting. ~ Julian Barnes

We live on the flat, on the level, and yet - and so - we aspire. Groundlings, we can sometimes reach as far as the gods. Some soar with art, others with religion; most with love. But when we soar, we can also crash. There are few soft landings. We may find ourselves bouncing across the ground with leg-fracting force, dragged towards some foreign railway line. Every love story is a potential grief story. If not at first, then later. If not for one, then for the other. Sometimes, for both. ~ Julian Barnes

And yet, for all this, for all that he was unparalleled in depicting tyrants knee-deep in blood, Shakespeare was a little naive. Because his monsters had doubts, bad dreams, pangs of conscience, guilt. They saw the spirits of those they had killed rising in front of them. But in real life, under real terror, what guilty conscience? What bad dreams? That was all sentimentality, false optimism, a hope that the world would be as we wanted it to be, rather than as it was. Those who chopped the wood and made the chips fly, those who smoked Belomory behind their desks at the Big House, those who signed the orders and made the telephone calls, closing a dossier and with it a life: how few of them had bad dreams, or ever saw the spirits of the dead rising to reproach them." (p 94) ~ Julian Barnes

You want power-either because you've already had a taste of it and want more, or because you've been made to feel powerless for too long. ~ Jennifer Lynn Barnes

The whole world is nothing but a noise, as hot as the inside of a tiger's mouth. They call it civilization - that is a lie! But some day you may have to go out, someone will try to take you out, and you will not understand them or what they are saying, unless you understand nothing, absolutely nothing, then you will manage. ~ Djuna Barnes

Luckily for us, I've never met a bad idea I did not immediately embrace like the dearest of friends. ~ Jennifer Lynn Barnes

There is violence in this supposedly tender heart of mine. ~ Julian Barnes

Someone once said that we get more difficult to love with each passing year because, over time, our histories grow so tangled that newcomers can no longer bushwhack their way into the thicketed and overgrown depths of our hearts. ~ Adrian Barnes

To shoes and skirts may they end up on our floors. ~ Luke Barnes

The past is something we can neither hold on to nor move entirely beyond. ~ Julian Barnes

I think every film actor secretly wants to be a rock star as well; just that part of the job which requires the extrovert in you. Even if you've become an actor because it's your way of hiding in plain sight, there's still part of you which has that craving. ~ Ben Barnes

5.4 The question of accumulation. If life is a wager, what form does it take? At the racetrack, an accumulator is a bet which rolls on profits from the success of one of the horse to engross the stake on the next one.
5.5 So a) To what extent might human relationships be expressed in a mathematical or logical formula? And b) If so, what signs might be placed between the integers?Plus and minus, self-evidently; sometimes multiplication, and yes, division. But these sings are limited. Thus an entirely failed relationship might be expressed in terms of both loss/minus and division/ reduction, showing a total of zero; whereas an entirely successful one can be represented by both addition and multiplication. But what of most relationships? Do they not require to be expressed in notations which are logically improbable and mathematically insoluble?
5.6 Thus how might you express an accumulation containing the integers b, b, a (to the first), a (to the second), s, v?
B = s - v (*/+) a (to the first)
Or
a (to the second) + v + a (to the first) x s = b
5.7 Or is that the wrong way to put the question and express the accumulation? Is the application of logic to the human condition in and of itself self-defeating? What becomes of a chain of argument when the links are made of different metals, each with a separate frangibility?
5.8 Or is "link" a false metaphor?
5.9 But allowing that is not, if a link breaks, wherein lies the responsibility for ~ Julian Barnes

What does the novel do? It tells beautiful, shapely lies which enclose hard, exact truths. ~ Julian Barnes

Appreciation of works of art requires organized effort and systematic study. Art appreciation can no more be absorbed by aimless wandering in galleries than can surgery be learned by casual visits to a hospital. ~ Albert C. Barnes

Bryne want kill dinosaur, i said pantomiming what i thought passed for a descent dinosaur killing motion.
For the first time in weeks, Ali laughed. Go on. And if you're very good, Ali show Bryn big heaping secret. fiiiiiirrrre. Make tasty warm dinosaur meat. ~ Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Sarcasm is irony which has lost its soul ~ Julian Barnes

...and who's to say what would have been for the best? You only found out afterwards, when it was too late. ~ Julian Barnes

And one of the things I've tried to do in my first months in office is to give more Georgians - reporters and members of the general public alike - a closer look at how their government works. ~ Roy Barnes

How do we seize the past? Can we ever do so? When I was a medical student some pranksters at the end-of-the-term dance released into the hall a piglet which had been smeared with grease. It squirmed between legs, evaded capture, squealed a lot. People fell over trying to grasp it, and were made to look ridiculous in the process. The past often seems to behave like that piglet. ~ Julian Barnes

I don't know if you've noticed it. But Duchamp was magnificent. ~ Robert Barnes

I think there's a different authenticity to memory, and not an inferior one. Memory sorts and sifts according to the demands made on it by the rememberer. ~ Julian Barnes

I guess I always thought," Ivy said softly, "that if I was strong enough, if I was formidable enough, if I was successful enough - I could be enough. For you. I thought that if I became this person who could take on the world, then I could take care of you." She shook her head - at her past self, maybe, or to snap herself out of it. "When I came to Montana that summer, Tess, I thought I was ready. I really did. I was going to give you everything. But Gramps called me out, and he was right, Tessie. I wasn't doing it for you. You were thriving. You were happy. And I . . ." The words got caught in her throat, but she forced them out. "I was your sister. I was never going to be strong enough or successful enough. There was never going to be a right time to tell you. You were happy. And you deserved to be happy. ~ Jennifer Lynn Barnes

We live with such easy assumptions, don't we? For instance, that memory equals events plus time. But it's all much odder than this. Who was it said that memory is what we thought we'd forgotten? And it ought to be obvious to us that time doesn't act as a fixative, rather as a solvent. But it's not convenient
it's not useful
to believe this; it doesn't help us get on with our lives; so we ignore it. ~ Julian Barnes

Praise now is one of the great duties of the redeemed. It will be their employment for ever. ~ Albert Barnes

The cure for sex is marriage;the cure for love is marriage;the cure for infidelity is divorce;the cure for unhappiness is work;the cure for extreme unhappiness is drink;the cure for death is a frail belief in the afterlife. ~ Julian Barnes

Then I thought about Adrian. My old friend who had killed himself. And this had been the last communication he had ever received from me. A libel on his character and an attempt to destroy the first and last love affair of his life. And when I had written that time would tell, I had underestimated, or rather miscalculated: time was telling not against them, it was telling against me. ~ Julian Barnes