Donald Barthelme Quotes

Quotes about:

• The writer is one who, embarking upon a task, does not know what to do... Writing is a process of dealing with not-knowing, a forcing of what and how.

  Donald Barthelme

  Writing, Knowing, Doe

  52 Copy quote

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

  Donald Barthelme

  Heart, Fur, Literature

  30 Copy quote

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

  Donald Barthelme

  Writing, Found, Worst

  1972 Sadness,'The Rise of Capitalism'.

  25 Copy quote

• One of the pleasures of art is that it enables the mind to move in unanticipated directions, to make connections that may be in some sense errors but are fruitful nonetheless.

  Donald Barthelme

  Art, Moving, Errors

  "Not-Knowing: The Essays and Interviews of Donald Barthelme". Book by Donald Barthelme. Chapter: "Reifications", p. 188, 1997.

  4 Copy quote

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

  Donald Barthelme

  Knowing, The End Of The Day, Way

  Donald Barthelme (1992). “The teachings of Don B.: satires, parodies, fables, illustrated stories, and plays of Donald Barthelme”

  8 Copy quote

• Art is not difficult because it wishes to be difficult, but because it wishes to be art.

  Donald Barthelme

  Art, Wish, Difficult

  "A brief survey of the short story part 16: Donald Barthelme" by Chris Power, www.theguardian.com. April 1, 2009.

  11 Copy quote

• There was no particular point at which I stopped being promising.

  Donald Barthelme

  Particular

  Donald Barthelme (1982). “Sixty stories”, Plume

  5 Copy quote

• I am never needlessly obscure - I am needfully obscure, when I am obscure.

  Donald Barthelme

  Obscure

  Quoted by Tracy Daugherty in an interview in "Splice Today", September 02, 2009.

  5 Copy quote

• 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

  Messages, Has Beens

  Donald Barthelme (1992). “The teachings of Don B.: satires, parodies, fables, illustrated stories, and plays of Donald Barthelme”

  12 Copy quote

• Write about what you're afraid of.

  Donald Barthelme

  Writing

  11 Copy quote

• Any genuine work of art generates new work.

  Donald Barthelme

  Art, New Work, Genuine

  18 Copy quote

• The task is not so much to solve problems as to propose questions.

  Donald Barthelme

  Tasks, Problem, Solve

  6 Copy quote

• The self cannot be escaped, but it can be, with ingenuity and hard work, distracted.

  Donald Barthelme

  Hard Work, Self, Ingenuity

  1972 Sadness,'Daumier'.

  5 Copy quote

• We like books that have a lot of dreck in them, matter which presents itself as not wholly relevant (or indeed, at all relevant) but which, carefully attended to, can supply a kind of "sense" of what is going on. This "sense" is not to be obtained by reading between the lines (for there is nothing there, in those white spaces) but by reading the lines themselves looking at them and so arriving at a feeling not of satisfaction exactly, that is too much to expect, but of having read them, of having "completed" them.

  Donald Barthelme

  Book, Reading, White

  1967 Snow White.

  5 Copy quote

• Goals incapable of attainment have driven many a man to despair, but despair is easier to get to than that -- one need merely look out of the window, for example.

  Donald Barthelme

  Men, Goal, Despair

  Donald Barthelme (2008). “Flying to America: 45 More Stories”, p.144, Counterpoint Press

  8 Copy quote

• I don't believe that we are what we do although many thinkers argue otherwise. I believe that what we do is, very often, a poor approximation of what we are -- an imperfect manifestation of a much better totality. Even the best of us sometimes bite off, as it were, less than we can chew.

  Donald Barthelme

  Believe, Arguing, Action

  14 Copy quote

• The death of God left the angels in a strange position.

  Donald Barthelme

  Angel, Strange, Position

  Donald Barthelme (1981). “Sixty stories”, Putnam Adult

  13 Copy quote

• 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

  Believe, Wife, Charm

  Donald Barthelme (1981). “Sixty stories”, Putnam Adult

  18 Copy quote

• People always like to hear that they're under stress, makes them feel better. You can imagine what they'd feel if they were told they weren't under stress.

  Donald Barthelme

  Stress, Feel Better, People

  "Jaws". "Forty Stories". Book by Donald Barthelme, 1987.

  6 Copy quote

• Self-criticism sessions were held, but these produced more criticism than could usefully be absorbed or accomodated.

  Donald Barthelme

  Self, Criticism, Session

  Donald Barthelme (1982). “Sixty stories”, Plume

  4 Copy quote

• How can you be alienated without first having been connected?

  Donald Barthelme

  Firsts, Connected

  Donald Barthelme (1982). “Sixty stories”, Plume

  10 Copy quote

• Capitalism arose and took off its pajamas. Another day, another dollar. Each man is valued at what he will bring in the marketplace. Meaning has been drained from work and assigned instead to remuneration.

  Donald Barthelme

  Work, Men, Dollars

  Donald Barthelme (1982). “Sixty stories”, Plume

  14 Copy quote

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

  Donald Barthelme

  Giving, Life Is, Said

  6 Copy quote

• What an artist does, is fail. Any reading of the literature, (I mean the literature of artistic creation), however summary, will persuade you instantly that the paradigmatic artistic experience is that of failure. The actualization fails to meet, equal, the intuition. There is something "out there" which cannot be brought "here". This is standard. I don't mean bad artists, I mean good artists. There is no such thing as a "successful artist" (except, of course, in worldly terms).

  Donald Barthelme

  Art, Reading, Mean

  "The Sandman". "Sadness". Book by Donald Barthelme, 1972.

  10 Copy quote

• The privileged classes can afford psychoanalysis and whiskey. Whereas all we get is sermons and sour wine. This is manifestly unfair. I protest, silently.

  Donald Barthelme

  Wine, Class, Whiskey

  12 Copy quote

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