Natalie Barney Quotes

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.

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

Most virtue is a demand for greater seduction.

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

Time engraves our faces with all the tears we have not shed.

‏ﺇﻧﻪ ﻳﺤﺒﻬﺎ ﺃﻛﺜﺮ ﻣﻦ ﻛﻞ ﺍﻷﺧﺮﻳﺎﺕ، ﻭ ﻟﻜﻨﻪ ﻳﺤﺘﺎﺝ ﺇﻟﻰ ﺍﻷﺧﺮﻳاﺕ ﻟﻜﻲ ﻳﻔﻄﻦ ﺇﻟﻰ ﺫﻟﻚ

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.

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.

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

Giving a girl the impression that girlhood is an extended bounce on Barney's knee is like prepping a young gazelle for life on the Serengeti by dipping it in cream.

Youth is not a question of years: one is young or old from birth.

Le pire n'est pas que l'on se brûle, mais que le feu s'éteint.

The advantage of love at first sight is that it delays a second sight.

Bientôt ou dans un cycle, ce sera de nouveau son tour de me prouver la qualité de son feu. Je ne lui manquerai pas, elle ne me manquera pas--et tout sera consumé.

La grande courtisane, la petite sainte.

Les générosites en amour se payent cher.

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.

If we keep an open mind, too much is likely to fall into it

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

Most virtue is a demand for greater seduction.”  -Natalie Clifford Barney

I have sometimes lost friends, but friends have never lost me.

Among her female friends, lesbians were particularly prominent: her closest friends in New York were Elsie de Wolfe and her partner, the theatrical agent Bessie Marbury, as well as Anne Morgan and her lover Ann Harriman Vanderbilt, and in Paris she was friendly with the lesbian novelist Natalie Barney and her circle. Lucy admired these independent, forthright women, and according to Randy Bryan Bigham, “a sexual ambiguity on Lucy’s part is possible.