Natalie Clifford Barney Quotes

Paris has always seemed to me to be the only city in which one can live as one sees fit.

Hero worship has died with heroes, and if someone bows down today, it is to pick up something.

Seeking revenge: what a lack of foresight.

Would that well-thinking people should be replaced by thinking ones.

To be married is to be neither alone nor together.

The past is such a subtle thing. [But] in the end, nothing else exists, everything is made of the past, even the future.

albinos aren't reproached for having pink eyes and whitish hair, why should they hold it again me for being a lesbian? It's a question of nature: my queerness isn't a vice, isn't 'deliberate,' and harms no one.

I'm fond of human beings, but only one at a time.

Lovers should also have their days off.

A scholar's heart is a dark well in which are buried many aborted feelings that rise to the surface as arguments.

Some people make it hard for me to believe in universal evolution.

With renunciation life begins.

Why grab possessions like thieves, or divide them like socialists when you can ignore them like wise men?

Tea - that perfume that one drinks, that connecting hyphen.

Eternity: what a waste of time.

Renouncement: the heroism of mediocrity.

The finest life is spent creating oneself, not procreating.

Novels are longer than life.