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The heart of the jealous knows the best and most satisfying love, that of the other’s bed, where the rival perfects the lover’s imperfections.

— Djuna Barnes Nightwood (1936)

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Love

More quotes by Djuna Barnes

New York is the meeting place of the peoples, the only city where you can hardly find a typical American.

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

Nightwood (1936)

One's life is peculiar to one's own when one has invented it.

Nightwood (1936)

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.

A strong sense of identity gives man an idea he can do no wrong; too little accomplishes the same.

Nightwood (1936)

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Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind.

William Shakespeare A Midsummer Night's Dream (1595)

To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.

Bertrand Russell Marriage and Morals (1929)

Not for the body, but for the heart; companion and company are needed.

Sanu Sharma

Love seldom haunts the breast where learning lies,
And Venus sets ere Mercury can rise.

Alexander Pope

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Djuna Barnes (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.