179 Quotes by Djuna Barnes

God, children know something they can't tell; they like Red Riding Hood and the wolf in bed!

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.

Even the contemplative life is only an effort, Nora my dear, to hide the body so the feet won’t stick out.

The whole world is nothing but a noise, as hot as the inside of a tiger's mouth. They call it civilization - that is a lie! But some day you may have to go out, someone will try to take you out, and you will not understand them or what they are saying, unless you understand nothing, absolutely nothing, then you will manage.

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

Love is the first lie; wisdom the last.

Destiny and history are untidy.

I have been loved,' she said, 'by something strange, and it has forgotten me.

I like my human experience served up with a little silence and restraint. Silence makes experience go further and, when it does die, gives it that dignity common to a thing one had touched and not ravished