The truth is how you say it, and to be 'one's self' is the most shocking custom of all.
Djuna BarnesRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the transformative and consuming nature of deep love, highlighting its power to shape identity and memory.
In this quote, Nora expresses to Matthew the profound impact that love has had on her life, suggesting that it can change one's sense of self. She contrasts her current state of being, burdened by memories and the weight of love, with Robin's ability to be free and unencumbered, revealing the dual nature of love as both liberating and imprisoning.
Themes
LoveIdentityMemoryTransformationPain
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the complexities of romantic relationships.
More from Djuna Barnes
All quotes →Our bones ache only while the flesh is on them. Stretch it as thin as the temple flesh of an ailing woman and still it serves to ache the bone and to move the bone about; and in like manner the night is a skin pulled over the head of day that the day may be in a torment. We will find no comfort until the night melts away; until the fury of the night rots out its fire.
Djuna BarnesRead
“God,” she cried, “what is love? Man seeking his own head? The human head, so rented by misery that even the teeth weigh! She couldn't tell me the truth because she had never planned it; her life was a continual accident, and how can you be prepared for that? Everything we can't bear in this world, some day we find in one person, and love it all at once.”
Djuna BarnesRead
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