Quotes by Natalie Clifford Barney

“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...”

“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, desper...”

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

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

“Fatalism is a lazy man's way of accepting the inevitable.”

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

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

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

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

“I am beginning to have a healthy dread of possessions, be it of a country, a house, a being or even an idea. If we are bothered by possessions we cannot really live either from without or from with...”

“We know all their gods; they ignore ours. What they call our sins are our gods, and what they call their gods, we name otherwise.”