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"The best form of government is one that is dying, because that means it's giving way to something else."
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"On the other hand, the vast majority of all westernized countries, including every single European country along with Israel and Japan, do not offer birthright citizenship."

"You can become a politician and improve the institutions of power in your country."

"The trouble with Nixon is that he's a serious politics junkie. He's totally hooked and like any other junkie, he's a bummer to have around, especially as President."

"The habit of using ardent spirits by men in office has occasioned more injury to the public and more trouble to me than all other causes. Were I to commence my administration again the first question I would ask respecting a candidate for office would be Does he use ardent spirits?"

"Earthquake means destruction; dictator means destruction! In the case of earthquake, you need a strong building; in the case of dictator, you need an educated rational mind, because an irrational ignorant mind always serves the dictator!"

"National transformation is also attainable through the simple principle of Truth and Honesty."

"The rich alone use imported articles, and on these alone the whole taxes of the General Government are levied...and its surplus applied to canals, roads, schools, etc., the farmer will see his government supported, his children educated, and the face of his country made a paradise by the contributions of the rich alone, without his being called on to spend a cent from his earnings."

"The Republicans have a me too candidate running on a yes but platform, advised by a has been staff."

"In America any boy may become President, and I suppose it's just one of the risks he takes!"
Explore more quotes by Julian Barnes

"If you remember your past too well you start blaming your present for it. Look what they did to me, that's what caused me to be like this, it's not my fault. Permit me to correct you: it probably is your fault. And kindly spare me the details."

"Music - good music, great music - had a hard, irreducible purity to it. It might be bitter and despairing and pessimistic, but it could never be cynical. If music is tragic, those with asses' ears accuse it of being cynical. But when a composer is bitter, or in despair, or pessimistic, that still means he believes in something."

"The better you know someone, the less well you often see them (and the less well they can therefore be transferred into fiction). They may be so close as to be out of focus, and there is no operating novelist to dispel the blur."

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

"The dangerous charm of GPC was that everything in the world could be called up; if you didn't look out, a couple of sessions might turn you from a serious enquirer into a mere gape-mouthed browser."

"I would have to go back into my past and deal with Adrian. My philosopher friend, who gazed on life and decided that any responsible, thinking individual should have the right to reject this gift that had never been asked for - and whose noble gesture re-emphasised with each passing decade the compromise and littleness that most lives consist of. 'Most lives': my life."

"Most people, in my opinion, steal much of what they are. If they didn't what poor items they would be."
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