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Djuna Barnes Quotes

1892–1982 United States

Djuna Barnes (June 12, 1892 – June 18, 1982) was an American novelist, poet, and playwright.

United States
20th-century poets
Authors
Journalists
Novelists

Random Djuna Barnes quote

30 quotes

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

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

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?

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.

The Book of Repulsive Women (1915)

Someday beneath some hard
Capricious star —
Spreading its light a little
Over far,
We'll know you for the woman
That you are.

The Book of Repulsive Women (1915)

What turn of card, what trick of game
Undiced?
And you we valued still a little
More than Christ.

The Book of Repulsive Women (1915)

What turn of body, what of lust
Undiced?
So we've worshipped you a little
More than Christ.

The Book of Repulsive Women (1915)

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.

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.

One sees you sitting in the sun
Asleep;
With the sweeter gifts you had
And didn't keep,
One grieves that the altars of
Your vice lie deep.

The Book of Repulsive Women (1915)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Djuna Barnes (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.