Colin Rhodes

“I can see there might be a positive side to this wilful averting of the eye: ignoring the bad things makes it easier for you to carry on. But ignoring the bad things makes you end up believing that bad things never happen. You are always surprised by them. It surprises you that guns kill, that money corrupts, that snow falls in winter. Such naivety can be charming; alas, it can also be perilous.”
― Julian Barnes, A History of the World in 10½ Chapters

“Miss Fergusson had maintained, when they first stood before the haloed mountain, that there were two explanations of everything, that each required the exercise of faith, and that we had been given free will in order that we might choose between them. This dilemma was to preoccupy Miss Logan for years to come. 7”
― Julian Barnes, A History of the World in 10½ Chapters

“No sooner do we come into this world,’ said Flaubert, ‘than bits of us start to fall off.”
― Julian Barnes, A History of the World in 10½ Chapters

“God damn it, he was thinking, this dying business is difficult. They just won’t let you get on with it, not on your own terms, anyway. You have to die on other people’s terms, and that’s a bore, love them as you might.”
― Julian Barnes, A History of the World in 10½ Chapters