Julian Barnes Giving Quotations

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?

The best form of government is one that is dying, because that means it’s giving way to something else.

To look at ourselves from afar, to make the subjective suddenly objective: this gives us a psychic shock.

Time...give us enough time and our best-supported decisions will seem wobbly, our certainties whimsical.