179 Quotes by Djuna Barnes

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

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

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.

My war brought me many things; let yours bring you as much. Life is not to be told, call it as loud as you like, it will not tell itself. No one will be much or little except in someone else's mind, so be careful of the minds you get into, and remember Lady Macbeth, who had her mind in her hand. We can't all be as safe as that.

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

And must I, perchance, like careful writers, guard myself against the conclusions of my readers?

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.

Love becomes the deposit of the heart, analogous in all degrees to the 'findings' in a tomb. As in one will be charted the taken place of the body, the raiment, the utensils necessary to its other life, so in the heart of the lover will be traced, as an indelible shadow, that which he loves.

Why is it that whenever I hear music I think I’m a bride?