Donald Barthelme Quotes: top 65 famous quotes about Donald Barthelme

Donald Barthelme Quotes & Sayings

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There's not a strong autobiographical strain in my fiction. A few bits of fact here and there. — Donald Barthelme

Succeed! It has been done, and with a stupidity that can astound the most experienced. — Donald Barthelme

We are what we have been told about ourselves. We are the sum of the messages we have received. The true messages. The false messages. — Donald Barthelme

I am never needlessly obscure I am needfully obscure, when I am obscure. — Donald Barthelme

Machines are braver than art. — Donald Barthelme

mead for my men! — Donald Barthelme

-You are killing me."
" -We? Not we. Not in any sense, we. Processes are killing you, not we. Inexorable processes. — Donald Barthelme

The thing about books is, there are quite a number you don't have to read. — Donald Barthelme

Endings are elusive, middles are nowhere to be found, but worst of all is to begin, to begin, to begin. — Donald Barthelme

It is possible of course that there are no more real men here, on his ball of half-truths, the earth. — Donald Barthelme

I believe that because I had obtained a wife who was made up of wife-signs (beauty, charm, softness, perfume, cookery) I had found love. — Donald Barthelme

Doubt is a necessary precondition tomeaningful action. Fear is the great mover in the end. — Donald Barthelme

Fragments are the only forms I trust. — Donald Barthelme

Our becoming is done. — Donald Barthelme

Food ... is the topmost taper on the golden candelabrum of existence. — Donald Barthelme

never figured out what sort of animal I was — Donald Barthelme

Nothing like a suck of the breast. — Donald Barthelme

Let me point out, if it has escaped your notice, that what an artist does, is fail. — Donald Barthelme

The present goal of the individual
in group enterprises is to avoid dominance; leadership is felt to be a character disorder. — Donald Barthelme

The trouble with capturing one is that that original gesture is almost impossible to equal or improve upon. — Donald Barthelme

Is death that which gives meaning to life? And I said, no, life is that which gives meaning to life. — Donald Barthelme

The aim of literature ... is the creation of a strange object covered with fur which breaks your heart. — Donald Barthelme

The best way to live is by not knowing what will happen to you at the end of the day ... — Donald Barthelme

The task is not so much to solve problems as to propose questions. — Donald Barthelme

There was no particular point at which I stopped being promising. — Donald Barthelme

The writer is one who, emnbarking upon a task, does not know what to do. — Donald Barthelme

The writer is [ ... ] the work's way of getting itself written — Donald Barthelme

The death of God left the angels in a strange position. — Donald Barthelme

See the moon? It hates us. — Donald Barthelme

Well, what shall I do next? What is the next thing demanded of me by history? — Donald Barthelme

I spoke to Sylvia. Do you think this is a good life? — Donald Barthelme

I think writers like old cities and are made very nervous by new cities. — Donald Barthelme

A hundred canes shattered in the sun, like a load of antihistamines falling out of an airplane. — Donald Barthelme

Strings of language extend in every direction to bind the world into a rushing, ribald whole. — Donald Barthelme

Anathematization of the world is not an adequate response to the world. — Donald Barthelme

The daughters are tired of kissing each other, although some are not. — Donald Barthelme

We regarded each other sitting around the breakfast table with its big cardboard boxes of "Fear," "Chix," and "Rats. — Donald Barthelme

Maybe writing can't be taught, but editing can be taught - prayer, fasting and self-mutilation. — Donald Barthelme

Art is not difficult because it wishes to be difficult, but because it wishes to be art. — Donald Barthelme

Of course we did everything right, insofar as we were able to imagine what "right" was. — Donald Barthelme

[picket sign] COGITO ERGO NOTHING! ... [casual passerby:] "Cogito ergo your ass" ... — Donald Barthelme

The important thing is the educational experience itself - how to survive it. — Donald Barthelme

And I sat there getting drunker and drunker and more in love and more in love. — Donald Barthelme

Can the life of the time be caught in an advertisement? Is that how it is, really, in the meadows of the world? — Donald Barthelme

No man's plenum, Mr. Quistgaard, is impervious to the awl of God's will. — Donald Barthelme

The center will not hold if it has been spot-welded by an operator whose deepest concern is not with the weld but with his lottery ticket. — Donald Barthelme

It is a curiosity of writing about angels that, very often, one turns out to be writing about men. — Donald Barthelme

You may not be interested in absurdity," she said firmly, "but absurdity is interested in you. — Donald Barthelme

And eloquence, Henry Mackie says, is really all any of us can hope for. — Donald Barthelme

Best not to anticipate too much ... it jiggles the possibilities. — Donald Barthelme

Write about what you're afraid of. — Donald Barthelme

Any genuine work of art generates new work. — Donald Barthelme

It seemed to proclaim itself a mystery, but one there was no point in solving - an ongoing low-grade mystery. — Donald Barthelme

This muck heaves and palpitates. It is multi-directional and has a mayor. — Donald Barthelme

You get Kandinsky, a bad mother, all them pick-up-sticks pictures ... — Donald Barthelme

Take me home," Snow White said. "Take me home instantly. If there is anything worse than being home, it is being out. — Donald Barthelme

Truth, as Bergson knew, is a hard apple, whether one is throwing it or catching it. — Donald Barthelme

How can you be alienated without first having been connected? — Donald Barthelme

Art is a meditation upon external reality rather than a representation of external reality — Donald Barthelme

Three rebellions ago, the air was fresher. The soft pasting noises of the rebel billposters remind us of Oklahoma, where everything is still the same. — Donald Barthelme

How can he be killed most easily? With the fewest stains? — Donald Barthelme

Have you noticed the weather? asked Thomas. All turned to look for the weather. — Donald Barthelme

MTV has severely compromised surrealism, perhaps ruined it forever. — Donald Barthelme

Well chaps first I'd like to say a few vile things more or less at random, not only because it is expected of me but also because I enjoy it. — Donald Barthelme

The confusing signals, the impurity of the signal, gives you verisimilitude, as when you attend a funeral and notice that it's being poorly done. — Donald Barthelme