Djuna Barnes Quotes
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An image is a stop the mind makes between uncertainties.
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To love without criticism is to be betrayed.
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New York is the meeting place of the peoples, the only city where you can hardly find a typical American.
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This head has risen above its hair in a moment of abandon known only to men who have drawn their feet out of their boots to walk awhile in the corridors of the mind.
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The priceless galaxy of misinformation called the mind.
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Of course I think of the past and of Paris, what else is there to remember?
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What turn of card, what trick of game Undiced? And you we valued still a little More than Christ.
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The night is a skin pulled over the head of day that the day may be in torment.
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If Helen of Troy could have been seen eating peppermints out of a paper bag, it is highly probable that her admirers would have been an entirely different class. It is the thing you are found doing while the horde looks on that you shall be loved for - or ignored.
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What turn of body, what of lust Undiced? So we've worshipped you a little More than Christ.
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We are adhering to life now with our last muscle - the heart.
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Well, isn't Bohemia a place where everyone is as good as everyone else - and must not a waiter be a little less than a waiter to be a good Bohemian?
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The Seal, she lounges like a bride, Much too docile, there's no doubt; Madame Récamier, on side, (if such she has), and bottom out.
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There is always more surface to a shattered object than a whole.
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I’m a fart in a gale of wind, a humble violet, under a cow pat.
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We are beginning to wonder whether a servant girl hasn't the best of it after all. She knows how the salad tastes without the dressing, and she knows how life's lived before it gets to the parlor door.
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Life is painful, nasty and short... in my case it has only been painful and nasty.
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One's life is peculiar to one's own when one has invented it.
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Time is a great conference planning our end, and youth is only the past putting a leg forward.
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Ah God! she settles down we say; It means her powers slip away It means she draws back day by day From good or bad.
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We watched her come with subtle fire And learned feet, Stumbling among the lustful drunk Yet somehow sweet. We saw the crimson leave her cheeks Flame in her eyes; For when a woman lives in awful haste A woman dies. The jests that lit our hours by night And made them gay, Soiled a sweet and ignorant soul And fouled its play.
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A strong sense of identity gives man an idea he can do no wrong; too little accomplishes the same.
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Sleep demands of us a guilty immunity. There is not one of us who, given an eternal incognito, a thumbprint nowhere set against our souls, would not commit rape, murder and all abominations.
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Someday beneath some hard Capricious star - Spreading its light a little Over far, We'll know you for the woman That you are.