You lose the world for a glance? Of course you do. That is what the world is for: to lose under the right circunstances.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that experiencing fleeting moments is part of the purpose of life, even if they come at a cost.
Julian Barnes expresses the idea that the transient nature of experiences, such as a quick glance or fleeting connection, is inherently valuable and vital to our existence. To lose oneself in the moment, even when it means sacrificing something larger, can be a worthwhile endeavor if the circumstances evoke profound emotions or insights. In essence, the quote encapsulates the philosophy that life is about embracing the ephemeral experiences that define our human condition.
In practice
During a speech on the importance of seizing opportunities, one might use this quote to emphasize the value of living in the moment.
(on grief) And you do come out of it, that’s true. After a year, after five. But you don’t come out of it like a train coming out of a tunnel, bursting through the downs into sunshine and that swift, rattling descent to the Channel; you come out of it as a gull comes out of an oil-slick. You are tarred and feathered for life.
Is despair wrong? Isn’t it the natural condition of life after a certain age? … After a number of events, what is there left but repetition and diminishment? Who wants to go on living? The eccentric, the religious, the artistic (sometimes); those with a false sense of their own worth. Soft cheeses collapse; firm cheeses endurate. Both go mouldy.
It took me some years to clear my head of what Paris wanted me to admire about it, and to notice what I preferred instead. Not power-ridden monuments, but individual buildings which tell a quieter story: the artist's studio, or the Belle Epoque house built by a forgotten financier for a just-remembered courtesan.
But I’ve been turning over in my mind the question of nostalgia, and whether I suffer from it. I certainly don’t get soggy at the memory of some childhood knickknack; nor do I want to deceive myself sentimentally about something that wasn’t even true at the time—love of the old school, and so on. But if nostalgia means the powerful recollection of strong emotions—and a regret that such feelings are no longer present in our lives—then I plead guilty.
And that's a life, isn't it? Some achievements and some disappointments. It's been interesting to me, though I wouldn't complain or be amazed if others found it less so. Maybe, in a way, Adrian knew what he was doing. Not that I would have missed my own life for anything, you understand. [pp.60-61]
Every love story is a potential grief story.
Yesterday is gone and took away its tale. _x000D_ Today we must live a fresh story again.
Suicides have a special language. Like carpenters they want to know which tools. They never ask why build.
We all create the person we become by our choices as we go through life. In a real sense, by the time we are adults, we are the sum total of the choices we have made.
No nobler feeling than this, of admiration for one higher than himself, dwells in the breast of man. It is to this hour, and at all hours, the vivifying influence in man's life.
There exists in the minds of men a tone of feeling toward women as toward slaves.
Even from the simplest, the most realistic point of view, the countries which we long for occupy, at any given moment, a far larger place in our actual life than the country in which we happen to be.
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