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"New York is the meeting place of the peoples, the only city where you can hardly find a typical American."
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"Foulmouthed individuals seem to have their neuron systems replaced by colon structures, given that their terminology profusely consists of "sh*t and f*ck". ['Tolerance zero']"

"The walls, where there was room, were well decorated with calendars and posters showing bright, improbable girls with pumped-up breasts and no hips - blondes, brunettes and redheads, but always with this bust development, so that a visitor of another species might judge from the preoccupation of artist and audience that the seat of procreation lay in the mammaries. Alice Chicoy...who worked among the shining girls, was wide-hipped and sag-chested and she walked well back on her heels...She was not in the least jealous of the calendar girls and the Coca-Cola girls. She had never seen anyone like them, and she didn't think anyone ever had."

"Back in the day, it was either both a mother and her daughter had pubic hair, or the daughter didn't. Today, in many a case, the mother is the one who doesn't."

"There is nothing in the record of the past two years when both Houses of Congress have been controlled by the Republican Party which can lead any person to believe that those promises will be fulfilled in the future. They follow the Hitler line - no matter how big the lie, repeat it often enough and the masses will regard it as truth."

"Will liked to live so that no one could find fault with him, and to do that he had to live as nearly like other people as possible."

"Chomie' is South African homosexual men's unofficial name."

"Either I shall find it, or I shall not find it. I examine my note-case. I look in all my pockets. These are the things that forever interrupt the process upon which I am eternally engaged of finding some perfect phrase that fits this moment exactly."

"It only too often yields to the temptation to become sycophantic, opportunist and lying, like a politician who sees the truth but wants to keep his place in popular favour."

"Why do prostitutes when they get straight always try and get so prim? It's like long-repressed librarian-ambitions come flooding out."
Explore more quotes by Djuna Barnes

"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."

"We are beginning to wonder whether a servant girl hasn't the best of it after all. She knows how the salad tastes without the dressing, and she knows how life's lived before it gets to the parlor door."

"The heart of the jealous knows the best and most satisfying love, that of the other's bed, where the rival perfects the lover's imperfections."

"A strong sense of identity gives man an idea he can do no wrong; too little accomplishes the same."
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