Djuna Barnes

“Man has no foothold that is not also a bargain. So be it!”

— Djuna Barnes

The whole world is nothing but a noise, as hot as the inside of a tiger's mouth. They call it civilization -…

— Djuna Barnes

The unendurable is the beginning of the curve of joy.

— Djuna Barnes

“None of us suffers as much as we should, or loves as much as we say. Love is the first lie; wisdom…

— Djuna Barnes

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

— Djuna Barnes

She was nervous about the future; it made her indelicate. She was one of the most unimportantly wicked women of her time…

— Djuna Barnes

“And once Father Lucas said to me, 'Be simple, Matthew, life is a simple book, and an open book, read and be…

— Djuna Barnes

Ife is painful, nasty and short.. in my case it has only been painful and nasty.

— Djuna Barnes

The very condition of Woman is so subject to Hazard, so complex, and so grievous, that to place her at one moment…

— Djuna Barnes

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

— Djuna Barnes

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

— Djuna Barnes

For most people, life is nasty, brutish, and short; for me, it has simply been nasty and brutish.

— Djuna Barnes

“Man makes his history with the one hand and "holds it up" with the other.”

— Djuna Barnes

“We wake from our doings in a deep sweat for that they happened in a house without an address, in a street…

— Djuna Barnes

To think is to be sick...

— Djuna Barnes

Destiny and history are untidy.

— Djuna Barnes

New York rose out of the water like a great wave that found it impossible to return again and so remained there…

— Djuna Barnes

I am not a critic; to me criticism is so often nothing more than the eye garrulously denouncing the shape of the…

— Djuna Barnes

This head has risen above its hair in a moment of abandon known only to men who have drawn their feet out…

— 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…

— Djuna Barnes

“We are but skin about a wind, with muscles clenched against mortality. We sleep in a long reproachful dust against ourselves. We…

— Djuna Barnes

The priceless galaxy of misinformation called the mind.

— Djuna Barnes

Yes, we who are full to the gorge with misery should look well around, doubting everything seen, done, spoken, precisely because we…

— Djuna Barnes

No one will be much or little except in someone else's mind, so be careful of the minds you get into...

— Djuna Barnes

“...he is not like other children, not cruel, or savage. For this very reason he is called 'strange.' A child who is…

— Djuna Barnes