88 Quotes by Natalie Clifford Barney

When you're in love you never really know whether your elation comes from the qualities of the one you love, or if it attributes them to her; whether the light which surrounds her like a halo comes from you, from her, or from the meeting of your sparks.

At first, when an idea, a poem, or the desire to write takes hold of you, work is a pleasure, a delight, and your enthusiasm knows no bounds. But later on you work with difficulty, doggedly, desperately. For once you have committed yourself to a particular work, inspiration changes its form and becomes an obsession, like a love-affair… which haunts you night and day! Once at grips with a work, we must master it completely before we can recover our idleness.

My queerness is not a vice, is not deliberate, and harms no one.

It's necessary to use suffering. Otherwise, one is used by it.

When she lowers her eyes she seems to hold all the beauty in the world between her eyelids; when she raises them I see only myself in her gaze.

Je me regarde sans honte : on n’a jamais blâmé les albinos d’avoir les yeux roses et les cheveux blanchâtres, pourquoi m’en voudrait-on d’être lesbienne? C’est une affaire de nature : mon étrangeté n’est pas un vice, n’est pas “voulue” et ne nuit à personne.

Paris has always seemed ... the only city where you can live and express yourself as you please.

... anything difficult to say must be shouted from the rooftops.

Most virtue is a demand for greater seduction.