Julian Barnes Quotes
Pride makes us long for a solution to things – a solution, a purpose, a final cause; but the better telescopes become, the more stars appear.
Barnes, Julian. Flaubert's Parrot. Jonathan Cape, 1984, p. 97.
The delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention were all men with different opinions. So the intent of the Framers might mean: The intent of the individual who proposed the section, the men who spoke on that section, the majority who voted to keep it in the document. This would be hard enough if there were a transcript of the debate, but there was not. We only have the notes of Madison and a few others at different times. And even they did not know the intentions on a given issue of delegates who did not speak. George Washington, for example, never spoke for or against any particular section of the Constitution. We can infer his intentions from other writings sometimes, but what about the delegates who did not write as much or whose letters and papers have not been found or preserved? The judges who must decide on constitutionality do the best that they can, and there is ALWAYS disagreement when judges make such a judgments and render an opinion.
Julian Patrick Barnes is an English writer. Barnes won the Man Booker Prize for his book The Sense of an Ending (2011), and three of his earlier books had been shortlisted for the Booker Prize: Flaubert's Parrot (1984), England, England (1998), and Arthur & George (2005). He has also written crime fiction under the pseudonym Dan Kavanagh. In addition to novels, Barnes has published collections of essays and short stories.
