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When One Wants To Become Cognizant Of The Color And The Texture Of The Soil, One Does Not Get A Ladder; One Gets A Shovel. When One Wants To Get Into Touch With The Texture Of The Universal Mind, One Does Not Go To Boston; One Goes To The Bowery.

-Djuna Barnes

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When One Wants To

Djuna Barnes

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When One Wants To Become Cognizant Of The Color And The Texture Of The Soil, One Does Not Get A Ladder; One Gets A Shovel. When One Wants To Get Into Touch With The Texture Of The Universal Mind, One Does Not Go To Boston; One Goes To The Bowery.

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When One Wants To Become Cognizant Of The Color And The Texture Of The Soil, One Does Not Get A Ladder; One Gets A Shovel. When One Wants To Get Into Touch With The Texture Of The Universal Mind, One Does Not Go To Boston; One Goes To The Bowery.

Youth Is Cause, Effect Is Age; So With The Thickening Of The Neck We Get Data.

One Must Not Look Inward Too Much, While The Inside Is Yet Tender. I Do Not Wish To Frighten Myself Until I Can Stand It.

An Image Is A Stop The Mind Makes Between Uncertainties.

Only The Impossible Lasts Forever.

After All, It Is Not Where One Washes One's Neck That Counts But Where One Moistens One's Throat.

Of Course I Think Of The Past And Of Paris, What Else Is There To Remember?

What Is A Ruin But Time Easing Itself Of Endurance?

Time Is A Great Conference Planning Our End, And Youth Is Only The Past Putting A Leg Forward.

We Are But Skin About A Wind, With Muscles Clenched Against Mortality.

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?

Why Is It That Whenever I Hear Music I Think I’m A Bride?

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.

Man Is The Only Thing That Has No Further Use After Something Goes Amiss.

I Have A Narrative, But You Will Be Put To It To Find It.

The Unendurable Is The Beginning Of The Curve Of Joy.

I Am Not A Critic; To Me Criticism Is So Often Nothing More Than The Eye Garrulously Denouncing The Shape Of The Peephole That Gives Access To Hidden Treasure.

Love Is The First Lie; Wisdom The Last.

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.

Madness To Us Means Reversion; To Such People As Una And Lena It Meant Progression. Now Their Uncle Had Entered Into A Land Beyond Them, The Land Of Fancy. For Fifty Years He Had Been As They Were, Silent, Hard-working, Unimaginative. Then All Of A Sudden, Like A Scholar Passing His Degree, He Had Gone Up Into Another Form.

And Must I, Perchance, Like Careful Writers, Guard Myself Against The Conclusions Of My Readers?

New York Is The Meeting Place Of The Peoples, The Only City Where You Can Hardly Find A Typical American.

One's Life Is Peculiar To One's Own When One Has Invented It.

To Love Without Criticism Is To Be Betrayed.

I Couldn't Ever Boil Potatoes Over The Heat Of Your Affection. Your Love Would Never Bridge A Gap; It Wouldn't Even Fill Up The Hole That The Mice Came Through.

To Think Is To Be Sick.

Destiny And History Are Untidy.

New York Rose Out Of The Water Like A Great Wave That Found It Impossible To Return Again And So Remained There In Horror, Peering Out Of The Million Windows Man Had Caged It With.

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Matthew,' She Said, 'have You Ever Loved Someone And It Became Yourself?' For A Moment He Did Not Answer. Taking Up The Decanter He Held It To The Light. 'robin Can Go Anywhere, Do Anything,' Nora Continued, 'because She Forgets, And I Nowhere Because I Remember.' She Came Toward Him. 'matthew,' She Said, 'you Think I Have Always Been Like This. Once I Was Remorseless, But This Is Another Love — It Goes Everywhere; There Is No Place For It To Stop — It Rots Me Away.

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.

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.

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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.

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The Truth Is How You Say It, And To Be 'one's Self' Is The Most Shocking Custom Of All.

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Doubting Everything

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God, Children Know Something They Can't Tell; They Like Red Riding Hood And The Wolf In Bed!

The Priceless Galaxy Of Misinformation Called The Mind.

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A Man Is Whole Only When He Takes Into Account His Shadow.

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