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Djuna Barnes

Djuna Barnes Quotes

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Famous Djuna Barnes Quotes

“Madness to us means reversion; to such people as Una and Lena it meant progression. Now their uncle had entered into a land beyond them, the land of fancy. For fifty years he had been as they were, silent, hard-working, unimaginative. Then all of a sudden, like a scholar passing his degree, he had gone up into another form.”

PeopleYearsMeanHardFormGoneLandHard WorkDegreesMadnessSilentIllnessPassingMental IllnessPassingsFancyFiftyScholarUnclesProgression
Book:Vivid and Repulsive as the Truth: The Early Works of Djuna Barnes
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“The very condition of Woman is so subject to Hazard, so complex, and so grievous, that to place her at one moment is but to displace her at the next.”

MomentsNextConditionsSubjectsComplexesHazards
Book:Ladies Almanack: Showing Their Signs and Their Tides, Their Moons and Their Changes, the Seasons as it is with Them, Their Eclipses and Equinoxes, as Well as a Full Record of Diurnal and Nocturnal Distempers
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““God,” she cried, “what is love? Man seeking his own head? The human head, so rented by misery that even the teeth weigh! She couldn't tell me the truth because she had never planned it; her life was a continual accident, and how can you be prepared for that? Everything we can't bear in this world, some day we find in one person, and love it all at once.””

MenWorldHumansPersonsEvilBlackGoneDoorsHonestyBearsAnd LoveMiserySeekingAccidentsTeethLiarsCriedDegradationWhat Is LoveBacksidesTell Me The TruthHonesty Love
Author:Djuna Barnes
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“She was nervous about the future; it made her indelicate. She was one of the most unimportantly wicked women of her time --because she could not let her time alone, and yet could never be a part of it. She wanted to be the reason for everything and so was the cause of nothing. She had the fluency of tongue and action meted out by divine providence to those who cannot think for themselves. She was the master of the over-sweet phrase, the over-tight embrace.”

ThinkingMadeReasonActionWantedCausesDivineSweetMastersEmbraceTongueNervousPhrasesWickedProvidenceAlone TimeDivine ProvidenceFluencyReason For Everything
Book:Nightwood
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“Matthew,' she said, 'have you ever loved someone and it became yourself?' For a moment he did not answer. Taking up the decanter he held it to the light. 'Robin can go anywhere, do anything,' Nora continued, 'because she forgets, and I nowhere because I remember.' She came toward him. 'Matthew,' she said, 'you think I have always been like this. Once I was remorseless, but this is another love — it goes everywhere; there is no place for it to stop — it rots me away.”

ThinkingSaidMomentsLightRememberAnswersForgetRobinsMatthewRemorseless
Book:Nightwood
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“When autumn shadows throw their patterns across the land, they are not the images of fragile, dying leaves, not the bared arms of lofty elms, not shadows of a fading summer; but swinging shapes as of books upon a strap, of round and square boxes held under an arm, of hurrying little people heading towards the nearest school.”

PeopleLittlesBookSchoolLandDyingArmsShapesSummerShadowRoundsPatternsBoxesAutumnSquaresFragileHeadingsLoftyFadingHurrying
Book:New York
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