Zitate von Djuna Barnes

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Djuna Barnes

Geburtstag: 12. Juni 1892
Todesdatum: 18. Juni 1982

Djuna Barnes war eine US-amerikanische Schriftstellerin und Illustratorin. Sie zählt zu den wichtigen Autorinnen der literarischen Moderne.

Zitate Djuna Barnes

„Das Leben ist ewig; darin liegt seine Schönheit.“

— Djuna Barnes
Nightwood

Über Leben, Über Schönheit

„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?“

— Djuna Barnes
Ch. 6 : Where the Tree Falls

„The unendurable is the beginning of the curve of joy.“

— Djuna Barnes, Nightwood

„This life I write and draw and portray is life as it is, and therefore you call it morbid.“

— Djuna Barnes
Context: Morbid? You make me laugh. This life I write and draw and portray is life as it is, and therefore you call it morbid. Look at my life. Look at the life around me. Where is this beauty that I am supposed to miss? The nice episodes that others depict? Is not everything morbid? I mean the life of people stripped of their masks. Where are the relieving features? Often I sit down to work at my drawing board, at my typewriter. All of a sudden my joy is gone. I feel tired of it all because, I think, "What's the use?" Today we are, tomorrow dead. We are born and don't know why. We live and suffer and strive, envious or envied. We love, we hate, we work, we admire, we despise. … Why? And we die, and no one will ever know that we have been born. When asked why she is "so dreadfully morbid", in an interview with Guido Bruno (December 1919) http://www.case.edu/artsci/engl/VSALM/mod/brandelmcdaniel/index/interviews.htm

„The jests that lit our hours by night
And made them gay,
Soiled a sweet and ignorant soul
And fouled its play.“

— Djuna Barnes
Context: p>We watched her come with subtle fire And learned feet, Stumbling among the lustful drunk Yet somehow sweet. We saw the crimson leave her cheeks Flame in her eyes; For when a woman lives in awful haste A woman dies. The jests that lit our hours by night And made them gay, Soiled a sweet and ignorant soul And fouled its play.</p To a Cabaret Dancer

„What is a ruin but time easing itself of endurance? Corruption is the Age of Time.“

— Djuna Barnes
Context: In the acceptance of depravity the sense of the past is most truly captured. What is a ruin but time easing itself of endurance? Corruption is the Age of Time. Ch. 6 : Where the Tree Falls

„And friends and relatives disperse,
And are not stirred.“

— Djuna Barnes
Context: Somewhere beneath her hurried curse, A corpse lies bounding in a hearse; And friends and relatives disperse, And are not stirred. From Third Avenue On

„It is the thing you are found doing while the horde looks on that you shall be loved for — or ignored.“

— Djuna Barnes
Context: If Helen of Troy could have been seen eating peppermints out of a paper bag, it is highly probable that her admirers would have been an entirely different class. It is the thing you are found doing while the horde looks on that you shall be loved for — or ignored. What Do You See, Madam? (1932)