Djuna Barnes Quotes

Quotes about:

• A man is whole only when he takes into account his shadow.

  Djuna Barnes

  Men, Shadow, Accounts

  Djuna Barnes (1995). “Nightwood: The Original Version and Related Drafts”

  59 Copy quote

• There is always more surface to a shattered object than a whole.

  Djuna Barnes

  Shattered, Surface, Whole

  Djuna Barnes, Rebecca Loncraine (2003). “The Book of Repulsive Women and Other Poems”, p.11, Psychology Press

  8 Copy quote

• Only the impossible lasts forever.

  Djuna Barnes

  Philosophical, Forever, Lasts

  Djuna Barnes (2014). “Nightwood”, p.102, Faber & Faber

  6 Copy quote

• The priceless galaxy of misinformation called the mind.

  Djuna Barnes

  Mind, Priceless, Misinformation

  Djuna Barnes, Thomas Stearns Eliot (2006). “Nightwood”, p.159, New Directions Publishing

  21 Copy quote

• No one will be much or little except in someone else's mind, so be careful of the minds you get into.

  Djuna Barnes

  Mind, Littles, Be Careful

  Djuna Barnes (2014). “Nightwood”, p.96, Faber & Faber

  6 Copy quote

• An image is a stop the mind makes between uncertainties.

  Djuna Barnes

  Mind, Uncertainty

  Djuna Barnes (2014). “Nightwood”, p.85, Faber & Faber

  9 Copy quote

• I talk too much because I have been made so miserable by what you are keeping hushed.

  Djuna Barnes

  Too Much, Miserable, Made

  28 Copy quote

• Our bones ache only while the flesh is on them.

  Djuna Barnes

  Flesh, Bones, Ache

  Djuna Barnes (2014). “Nightwood”, p.68, Faber & Faber

  20 Copy quote

• The unendurable is the beginning of the curve of joy.

  Djuna Barnes

  Curves, Joy, Unendurable

  Djuna Barnes, Thomas Stearns Eliot (2006). “Nightwood”, p.125, New Directions Publishing

  19 Copy quote

• Life is not to be told, call it as loud as you like, it will not tell itself.

  Djuna Barnes

  Life Is, You Like It, Loud

  Djuna Barnes (2014). “Nightwood”, p.96, Faber & Faber

  6 Copy quote

• I like my human experience served up with a little silence and restraint. Silence makes experience go further and, when it does die, gives it that dignity common to a thing one had touched and not ravished

  Djuna Barnes

  Giving, Silence, Littles

  19 Copy quote

• Time is a great conference planning our end, and youth is only the past putting a leg forward.

  Djuna Barnes

  Past, Legs, Planning

  Djuna Barnes, Thomas Stearns Eliot (2006). “Nightwood”, p.138, New Directions Publishing

  32 Copy quote

• Love is the first lie; wisdom the last.

  Djuna Barnes

  Lying, Love Is, Lasts

  Djuna Barnes, Thomas Stearns Eliot (2006). “Nightwood”, p.147, New Directions Publishing

  13 Copy quote

• Dreams have only the pigmentation of fact.

  Djuna Barnes

  Dream, Facts

  1936 Doctor. Night wood, ch.5.

  9 Copy quote

• The truth is how you say it, and to be 'one's self' is the most shocking custom of all.

  Djuna Barnes

  Self, Truth Is, Shocking

  8 Copy quote

• I have been loved,' she said, 'by something strange, and it has forgotten me.

  Djuna Barnes

  Strange, Forgotten, Said

  Djuna Barnes, Thomas Stearns Eliot (2006). “Nightwood”, p.165, New Directions Publishing

  17 Copy quote

• A man is whole only when he takes into account his shadow as well as himself - and what is a man's shadow but his upright astonishment?

  Djuna Barnes

  Men, Shadow, Wells

  "Nightwood" by Djuna Barnes, (Ch. 6), 1936.

  10 Copy quote

• 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.

  Djuna Barnes

  Sweet, Thinking, Wicked

  Djuna Barnes, Thomas Stearns Eliot (2006). “Nightwood”, p.74, New Directions Publishing

  12 Copy quote

• Destiny and history are untidy.

  Djuna Barnes

  Destiny

  Djuna Barnes, Thomas Stearns Eliot (2006). “Nightwood”, p.126, New Directions Publishing

  14 Copy quote

• Of course I think of the past and of Paris, what else is there to remember?

  Djuna Barnes

  Past, Thinking, Paris

  In a 1960 letter to Natalie Barney, as quoted in "Paris Was a Woman" by Andrea Weiss, (p. 173), 1995.

  6 Copy quote

• Too great a sense of identity makes a man feel he can do no wrong. And too little does the same.

  Djuna Barnes

  Humble, Men, Creative

  9 Copy quote

• The whole world is nothing but a noise, as hot as the inside of a tiger's mouth. They call it civilization - that is a lie! But some day you may have to go out, someone will try to take you out, and you will not understand them or what they are saying, unless you understand nothing, absolutely nothing, then you will manage.

  Djuna Barnes

  Lying, Civilization, Trying

  14 Copy quote

• I am not a critic; to me criticism is so often nothing more than the eye garrulously denouncing the shape of the peephole that gives access to hidden treasure.

  Djuna Barnes

  Eye, Giving, Criticism

  "The Songs of Synge : The Man Who Shaped His Life as He Shaped His Plays". New York Morning Telegraph, February 18, 1917.

  54 Copy quote

• The night is a skin pulled over the head of day that the day may be in torment.

  Djuna Barnes

  Night, Skins, May

  Djuna Barnes (1995). “Nightwood: The Original Version and Related Drafts”

  11 Copy quote

• One must not look inward too much, while the inside is yet tender. I do not wish to frighten myself until I can stand it.

  Djuna Barnes

  Wish, Inward, Looks

  Djuna Barnes (2016). “Vivid and Repulsive as the Truth: The Early Works of Djuna Barnes”, p.207, Courier Dover Publications

  8 Copy quote

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