Djuna Barnes's Quotes

The priceless galaxy of misinformation called the mind.

Life is painful, nasty and short... in my case it has only been painful and nasty.

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.

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

What is a ruin but time easing itself of endurance?

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

After all, it is not where one washes one's neck that counts but where one moistens one's throat.

An image is a stop the mind makes between uncertainties.

Dreams have only the pigmentation of fact.

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

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

To love without criticism is to be betrayed.

We are adhering to life now with our last muscle - the heart.

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?

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.

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.