John Barth Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• Somewhere in the world there was a young woman with such splendid understanding that she'd see him entire, like a poem or story, and find his words so valuable after all that when he confessed his apprehensions she would explain why they were in fact the very things that made him precious to her...and to Western Civilization! There was no such girl, the simple truth being.

  John Barth

  Girl, Simple, Civilization

  L. Rust Hills, John Barth (1974). “Writer's choice”, Modern Library

  5 Copy quote

• Tis e'er the wont of simple folk to prize the deed and o'erlook the motive, and of learned folk to discount the deed and lay open the soul of the doer.

  John Barth

  Simple, Soul, Deeds

  4 Copy quote

• Those rituals of getting ready to write produce a kind of trance state.

  John Barth

  Writing, Kind, States

  15 Copy quote

• not every boy thrown to the wolves becomes a hero.

  John Barth

  Hero, Boys, Thrown

  8 Copy quote

• If you are a novelist of a certain type of termperament, then what you really want to do is re-invent the world. God wasn't too bad a novelist except he was a Realist.

  John Barth

  Novelists, World, Crafts

  4 Copy quote

• It's easier and sociabler to talk technique than it is to make art.

  John Barth

  Art, Technique, Easier

  John Barth (1984). “The Friday book: essays and other nonfiction”, Putnam Pub Group

  6 Copy quote

• The horror of our history has purged me of opinions.

  John Barth

  Opinion, Horror

  John Barth (2014). “Lost in the Funhouse”, p.20, Anchor

  5 Copy quote

• Yet everyone begins in the same place; how is it that most go along without difficulty but a few lose their way?

  John Barth

  Way, Difficulty, Loses

  John Barth (2014). “Lost in the Funhouse”, p.98, Anchor

  4 Copy quote

• History - an account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant

  John Barth

  History, Knaves, Events

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• He wishes he had never entered the funhouse. But he has. Then he wishes he were dead. But he's not. Therefore he will construct funhouses for others and be their secret operator -- though he would rather be among the lovers for whom funhouses are designed.

  John Barth

  Secret, Wish, Lovers

  L. Rust Hills, John Barth (1974). “Writer's choice”, Modern Library

  4 Copy quote

• You don't reach Serendib by plotting a course for it. You have to set out in good faith for elsewhere and lose your bearings... serendipitously.

  John Barth

  Serendipity, Good Faith, Elsewhere

  "The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor". Book by John Barth, 1991.

  7 Copy quote

• The Bible is not man's word about God, but God's word about man.

  John Barth

  God, Men

  4 Copy quote

• Nobody knew how to be what they were right.

  John Barth

  John Barth (2014). “Lost in the Funhouse”, p.104, Anchor

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• The transaction will enable us to become a single source of integrated products and services that building owners want in order to optimize comfort and energy efficiency

  John Barth

  Order, Energy, Comfort

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• One of the things I miss about teaching is that students would tell me what I ought to read. One of my students, back in the 1960s, put me onto Borges, and I remember another mentioning Flann O'Brien's At Swim Two-Birds in the same way.

  John Barth

  Teaching, Two, Bird

  Boston Sunday Globe, November 02, 2008.

  4 Copy quote

• If you would learn a thing, straightway declare yourself a professor of it!

  John Barth

  Professors, Ifs

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• All men are loyal, but their objects of allegiance are at best approximate.

  John Barth

  Loyalty, Men, Allegiance

  7 Copy quote

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