Djuna Barnes Quotes

What do you listen to in the Protestant church? To the words of a man who has been chosen for his eloquence — and not too eloquent either, mark you, or he get’s the bum’s rush from the pulpit, for fear that in the end he will use his golden tongue for political ends. For a golden tongue is never satisfied until it has wagged itself over the destiny of a nation, and this the church is wise enough to know.

Have you ever loved someone and it became yourself?

RAGNA: All you do not take from the world the world takes from you, all the flowering plants you have denied yourself are full of you, your presence makes the wheat fields uneasy, because of you and likes of you the markets are querulous and mean and overfed. The joints of beef you have not eaten have eaten you. They are glutted with the mouths they have left empty.

My war brought me many things; let yours bring you as much. Life is not to be told, call it as loud as you like, it will not tell itself. No one will be much or little except in someone else's mind, so be careful of the minds you get into, and remember Lady Macbeth, who had her mind in her hand. We can't all be as safe as that.

Man was born damned and innocent from the start, and wretchedly - as he must - on those two themes - whistles his tune.

The heart of the jealous knows the best and the most satisfying love, that of the other's bed, where the rival perfects the lover's imperfections. Fancy gallops to take part in that duel, unconstrained by any certain articulation of the laws of that unseen game.

She was nervous about the future; it made her indelicate. She was one of the most unimportantly wicked women of her time — because she could not let her time alone, and yet could never be a part of it. She wanted to be the reason for everything and so was the cause of nothing. She had the fluency of tongue and action meted out by divine providence to those who cannot think for themselves. She was the master of the over-sweet phrase, the over-tight embrace.

She's dashed beautiful, has cat eyes and Leslie Carter hair – a loose-jointed, ball-bearing Clytie, rigged out with a complexion like creamed coffee stood overnight. They say she claws more men into her hair than any siren living or dead.

And must I, perchance, like careful writers, guard myself against the conclusions of my readers?

No myth is safely broken.

Everything we can’t bear in this world, some day we find in one person, and love it all at once.

«Noi ci volgiamo all'Oriente in cerca di una saggezza che non useremo, e al dormiente in cerca del segreto che non scopriremo. E allora vi chiedo: com'è la notte, la notte terribile? L'oscurità è il rifugio dove va ad appollaiarsi il cuore dell'amata, ed è l'uccello notturno che gracchia contro il suo spirito e il vostro, lasciando cadere in mezzo a voi l'orrenda estraneità delle sue viscere. Il gocciolio delle vostre lacrime è il suo pulsare implacabile. Gli abitanti della notte non seppelliscono i loro morti, la creatura mondata del guscio dei suoi gesti essi l'appendono al collo a voi, sveglia, che siete la loro beneamata. E dovunque andiate, la creatura vi seguirà, voi coi vostri vivi, l'amata coi suoi morti, e non morirà mai, verso la luce del giorno, verso la vita, verso il dolore, fino a che non sarete entrambe carogne.»

New York is the meeting place of the peoples, the only city where you can hardly find a typical American.

Nora aveva la faccia di tutti coloro che amano gli altri - una faccia che sarebbe diventata cattiva quando avrebbe scoperto che amare senza riserve è essere traditi.

We are adhering to life now with our last muscle - the heart.