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. Fa… - Djuna Barnes

Nightwood is demanding. You can slide into it, because the prose has a narcotic quality, but you can’t slide over it. The language is not about conveying information; it is about conveying meaning.

THE MAN: We will bury her deep beneath our hearts, yours and mine — for her soul is a flower, and that we may not touch; but her spirit is wine, and that we may drink, that she may have her shroud.

She was broad and tall, and though her skin was the skin of a child, there could be seen coming, early in her life, the design that was to be the weather-beaten grain of her face, that wood in the work; the tree coming forward in her, an undocumented record of time.