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Djuna Barnes Quotes

Writer

Djuna Barnes, an American writer, was born on June 12, 1892, and died on June 18, 1982. She is known for her unique literary style and profound modernist thoughts.

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All Men Nightwood Love Littles Mind Life Is Thinking Djuna Barnes Knows Night Heart Lasts Looks Love Is Past Shadow Sleep Suffering Whole Age

Famous Djuna Barnes Quotes

“She was gracious and yet fading, like an old statue in a garden, that symbolizes the weather through which it has endured, and is not so much the work of man as the work of wind and rain and the herd of the seasons, and though formed in men's image is a figure of doom.”

Men Love Women Beauty Garden Seasons Independence Weather Imagery Woman S Strength Djuna Barnes

Author:Djuna Barnes

“A man is whole only when he takes into account his shadow as well as himself - and what is a man's shadow but his upright astonishment?”

Men Wells Whole Shadow Accounts Astonishment

Author:Djuna Barnes

“No man needs curing of his individual sickness; his universal malady is what he should look to.”

Men Needs Should Looks Individual Universal Illness Sickness Malady

Book:Nightwood

Source: Nightwood

“New York rose out of the water like a great wave that found it impossible to return again and so remained there in horror, peering out of the million windows man had caged it with.”

Men Found Water Millions Impossible New York Return Horror Window Rose Wave Caged

Book:Vivid and Repulsive as the Truth: The Early Works of Djuna Barnes

Source: Vivid and Repulsive as the Truth: The Early Works of Djuna Barnes

“Man is the only thing that has no further use after something goes amiss.”

Men Use

Book:Vivid and Repulsive as the Truth: The Early Works of Djuna Barnes

Source: Vivid and Repulsive as the Truth: The Early Works of Djuna Barnes

“One cup poured into another makes different waters; tears shed by one eye would blind if wept into another's eye. The breast we strike in joy is not the breast we strike in pain; any man's smile would be consternation on another's mouth.”

Ifs Men Different Would Be Eye Pain Joy Water Tears Mouths Blind Strikes Cups Breasts Shed Consternation

Book:Nightwood: The Original Version and Related Drafts

Source: Nightwood: The Original Version and Related Drafts

““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.””

Men World Humans Persons Evil Black Gone Doors Honesty Bears And Love Misery Seeking Accidents Teeth Liars Cried Degradation What Is Love Backsides Tell Me The Truth Honesty Love

Author:Djuna Barnes

“You beat the liver out of a goose to get a pâté; you pound the muscles of a man's cardia to get a philosopher.”

Men Beats Philosopher Muscles Pounds Geese Liver

Book:Nightwood

Source: Nightwood

“A man is whole only when he takes into account his shadow.”

Men Whole Shadow Accounts Astonishment

Book:Nightwood: The Original Version and Related Drafts

Source: Nightwood: The Original Version and Related Drafts

“Too great a sense of identity makes a man feel he can do no wrong. And too little does the same.”

Men Feels Littles Doe Can Do Creative Identity Humble

Author:Djuna Barnes

“A man's sorrow runs uphill; true it is difficult for him to bear, but it is also difficult for him to keep.”

Men Running Difficult Bears Sorrow Sad

Book:Nightwood

Source: Nightwood

“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.”

Men Mind Moments Walks Known Feet Hair Abandon Boots Risen Corridors Gnarly

Book:Collected Stories

Source: Collected Stories

About the Author

Born: June 12, 1892
Died: June 18, 1982
Known for: Writer
Quotes: 107

Books & Sources

NightwoodRelated source material

Vivid and Repulsive as the Truth: The Early Works of Djuna BarnesRelated source material

Nightwood: The Original Version and Related DraftsRelated source material

Collected StoriesRelated source material

New YorkRelated source material

Collected Poems: With Notes Toward the MemoirsRelated source material

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 DistempersRelated source material

The Book of Repulsive Women and Other PoemsRelated source material

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