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Quotes from The Book of Repulsive Women — Djuna Barnes

1892–1982 United States

← All quotes by Djuna Barnes

7 quotes

Somewhere beneath her hurried curse,
A corpse lies bounding in a hearse;
And friends and relatives disperse,
And are not stirred.

The Book of Repulsive Women (1915)

The jests that lit our hours by night
And made them gay,
Soiled a sweet and ignorant soul
And fouled its play.

The Book of Repulsive Women (1915)

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)

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.