Barthelme Quotes & Sayings

I remember that feeling, that comfort, that sense of everything in its place, the rightness of it all, when the winter is loved and the summer is all the sun there is. When you want that specific moment, that time, that place, that situation, forever. You can't force it or wish it, and praying doesn't help. You wait, you keep going, you hope maybe it will come around again. That flawless equilibrium. — Frederick Barthelme

Art is not difficult because it wishes to be difficult, but because it wishes to be art. — 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've learned so much from my professors and have been fortunate to have had so many good ones, including Frederick and Steven Barthelme, Edward Carey, Jim Magnuson, and Elizabeth McCracken. — Mary J. Miller

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

There was a certain amount of initial argumentation about the "meaning" of the balloon; this subsided, because we have learned not to insist on meanings, and they are rarely even looked for now, except in cases involving the simplest, safest phenomena. — Donald Barthelme

But the lie had to be a good one, because if your lie is badly done it makes everyone feel wretched, liar and lied-to alike plunged into the deepest lackadaisy, and everyone just feels like going into the other room and drinking a glass of water, or whatever is available there, whereas if you can lie really well then get dynamite results, 35 percent report increased intellectual understanding, awareness, insight, 40 percent report more tolerance, acceptance of others, liking for self, 29 percent report they receive more personal and more confidential information from people and that others become more warm and supportive toward them
all in consequence of a finely orchestrated, carefully developed untruth. — Donald Barthelme

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

Glimpses is dead-on about the high and tight nineties even as it reaches out for the sweet hereafter of the sixties. It longs for something better, and finds it, I guess, as much as anything is ever found anymore. It's a mean, sweet, wry, and disturbing book, in equal portions. — Frederick Barthelme

How does one conquer fear, Don B.?" "One takes a frog and sews it to one's shoe," he said. "The left or the right?" Don B. gave me a pitying look. "Well, you'd look mighty funny going down the street with only one frog sewed to your shoes, wouldn't you?" he said. "One frog on each shoe. — Donald Barthelme

I met you under the balloon, on the occasion of your return from Norway; you asked if it was mine; I said it was. The balloon, I said, is a spontaneous autobiographical disclosure, having to do with the unease I felt at your absence, and with sexual deprivation, but now that your visit to Bergen has been terminated, it is no longer necessary or appropriate. Removal of the balloon was easy; trailer trucks carried away the depleted fabric, which is now stored in West Virginia, awaiting some other time of unhappiness, some time, perhaps, when we are angry with one another. — Donald Barthelme

Will you be wanting to contest the divorce?" I asked Mrs. Davis. "I should think not," she said calmly, "although I suppose on of us should, for the fun of the thing. An uncontested divorce always seems to me contrary to the spirit of divorce. — Donald Barthelme

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

The world in the evening seems fraught with the absence of promise, if you are a married man. There is nothing to do but go home and drink your nine drinks and forget about it. — 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

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

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

My mother studied English and drama at the University of Pennsylvania, where my father studied architecture. She was a great influence in all sorts of ways, a wicked wit. — Donald Barthelme

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

Now, here is the point about the self: it is insatiable. It is always, always hankering. It is what you might call rapacious to a fault. The great flaming mouth to the thing is never in this world going to be stuff full. — Donald Barthelme

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

All men that are ruined are ruined on the side of their natural propensities, the note concludes.
This is surely true. Yet the vivacity with which he embraces ruin is unexampled, in my experience. — Donald Barthelme

Mindy Sue, you are a pretty, lively, successful female, fluent in French and German. You are a professional woman but also sportif. You care buckets, I can see that. How did you get yourself in this terrible predicament? How did you become a four-line seventy-five-cents-a-word advertisement in the back pages of The New York Review of Books? — Donald Barthelme

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

Machines are braver than art. — Donald Barthelme

Naked girls with the heads of Marx and Malraux prone and helpless in the glare of the headlights, tried to give them a little joie de vivre but maybe it didn't take, their constant bickering and smallness, it's like a stroke of lightning, the world reminds you of its power, tracheotomies right and left, I am spinning, my pretty child, don't scratch, pick up your feet, the long nights, spent most of my time listening, this is a test of the system, this is only a test. — Donald Barthelme

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

I wanted to say a certain thing to a certain man, a certain true thing that had crept into my head. I opened my head, at the place provided, and proceeded to pronounce the true thing that lay languishing there - that is, proceeded to propel that trueness, that felicitous trularity, from its place inside my head out into world life. The certain man stood waiting to receive it. His face reflected an eager accepting-ness. Everything was right. I propelled, using my mind, my mouth, all my muscles. I propelled. I propelled and propelled. I felt trularity inside my head moving slowly through the passage provided (stained like the caves of Lascaux with garlic, antihistamines, Berloiz, a history, a history) toward its debut on the world stage. Past my teeth, with their little brown sweaters knitted of gin and cigar smoke, toward its leap to critical scrutiny. Past my lips, with their tendency to flake away in cold weather - — Donald Barthelme

Painters, especially American painters since the Second World War, have been much more troubled, beset by formal perplexity, than American writers. They've been a laboratory for everybody. — Donald Barthelme

The not-knowing is crucial to art, is what permits art to be made. Without the scanning process engendered by not-knowing, without the possibility of having the mind move in unanticipated directions, there would be no invention. — Donald Barthelme

I smell fennel," Launcelot said. "That reminds me, I should tell you I have discovered a specific for maims. You take salt, good-quality river mud, and bee urine, and slather it on the maim and hold it there for two days. Works like a charm. Gathering the bee urine is a bit of a bore. — 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

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

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

All of us ... still believe that the American flag betokens a kind of general righteousness. But I say ... that signs are signs and some of them are lies. — Donald Barthelme

-It is true that I am part of the laughing-aristocrat structure, Charles said. I don't mean I am one of them. I mean I am their creature. They hold me in thrall.
Laughing aristocrats who invented the cost-plus contract . . .
Laughing aristocrats who invented the real estate broker . . .
Laughing aristocrats who invented Formica . . .
Laughing aristocrats wiping their surfaces clean with a damp cloth . . .
Charles poured himself another brilliant green Heineken.
-To the struggle! — Donald Barthelme

You came and fell upon me, I was sitting in the wicker chair. The wicker exclaimed as your weight fell upon me. You were light, I thought, and I thought how good it was of you to do this. We'd never touched before. — Donald Barthelme

97. I approached the symbol, with its layers of meaning, but when I touched it, it changed into only a beautiful princess.
98. I threw the beautiful princess headfirst down the mountain to my acquaintances.
99. Who could be relied upon to deal with her. — Donald Barthelme

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

Miss Mandible wants to make love to me but she hesitates because I am officially a child; I am, according to the records, according to the gradebook on her desk, according to the card index in the principal's office, eleven years old. There is a misconception here, one that I haven't quite managed to get cleared up yet. I am in fact thirty-five, I've been in the Army, I am six feet one, I have hair in the appropriate places, my voice is a barritone, I know very well what to do with Miss Mandible if she ever makes up her mind. — Donald Barthelme

My mother was a royal virgin," Peterson said, "and my father a shower of gold. My childhood was pastoral and energetic and rich in experiences which developed my character. As a young man I was noble in reason, infinite in faculty, in form express and admirable, and in apprehension ... " Peterson went on and on and although he was, in a sense, lying, in a sense he was not. — Donald Barthelme

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

I remember loving pencils. I was fond of paper. I loved the small of textbooks. I loved the way the light from a desk lamp was bright on a page. I loved the smell of fresh-cut grass. It was a thing everybody loved, but there was no shame in being that much like everybody else, in sharing that. — Frederick Barthelme

Clean your face," I said to the child. "It's dirty." "It's not," the child said. "By God it is," I said, "filth adheres in ine areas which I shall enumerate." "That is because of the dough," the child said. "We were taking death masks." "Dough!" I exclaimed, shocked at the idea that the child had wasted flour and water and no doubt paper too in this lightsome pastime, taking death masks. "Death!" I exclaimed for added emphasis. "What do you know of death?" "It is the end of the world," the child said, "for the death-visited individual. The world ends," the child said, "when you turn out your eyes." This was true, I could not dispute it. I returned to the main point. "Your father is telling you to wash your face," I said, locating myself in the abstract where I was more comfortable. — Donald Barthelme

What had been quiet and restful was now silent and empty. — Frederick Barthelme

See the moon? It hates us. — Donald Barthelme

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

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

I met Donald Barthelme when I was 30, and it's fair to say that before that moment, I was pre-modern, and after I met him, I was nudged rather forcefully towards this other end of the spectrum. — Padgett Powell

I myself," said Gibbon, "am slightly underdone in the personal worthlessness line. It was Papa's fault. He used no irony. The communications mix offered by the parent to the child is as you know twelve percent do this, eighty-two percent don't do that, and six percent huggles and endearments. That is standard. Now, to avoid boring himself or herself to death during this monition the parent enlivens the discourse with wit, usually irony of the cheaper sort. The irony ambigufies the message, but more importantly establishes in the child the sense of personal lack-of-worth. Because the child understands that one who is talked to in this way is not much of a something. Ten years of it goes a long way. Fifteen is better. That is where Pap fell down. He eschewed irony. — Donald Barthelme

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

The President looked out of his window. He was not very happy. I worry about Bill, Hubert, Henry, Kevin, Edward, Clem, Dan and their lover, Snow White. I sense that all is not well with them. Now, looking out over this green lawn, and these fine rosebushes, and into the night and the yellow buildings, and the falling Dow Jones Index and the screams of the poor, I am concerned. I have many important things to worry about, but I worry about Bill and the boys too. Because I am the President. Finally. the President of the whole fucking country. And they are Americans, Bill, Hubert, Henry, Kevin, Edward, Clem, Dan and Snow White. They are Americans. My Americans. — Donald Barthelme

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

The combinatory agility of words," he wrote in "Not-Knowing," "the exponential generation of meaning once they're allowed to go to bed together, allows the writer to surprise himself, makes art possible, reveals how much of Being we haven't yet encountered. — Donald Barthelme

Hubert complains that the electric wastebasket has been overheating. I haven't noticed it but that's what Hubert says and Hubert is rarely wrong about things that don't matter. The electric wastebasket is a security item. Papers dropped into it are destroyed instantly. How the electric wastebasket accomplishes this is not known. An intimidation followed by a demoralization eventuating in a disintegration, one assumes. It is not emptied. There are not even ashes. — Donald Barthelme

- What do the children say?
- There's a thing the children say.
- What do the children say?
- They say: Will you always love me?
- Always.
- Will you always remember me?
- Always.
- Will you remember me a year from now?
- Yes, I will.
- Will you remember me two years from now?
- Yes, I will.
- Will you remember me five years from now?
- Yes, I will.
- Knock knock.
- Who's there?
- You see?
("Great Days," Forty Stories) — Donald Barthelme

Like most marriages, ours eventually wore down all the cartilage. We were a hip needing replacement. Bone on bone, grinding, day in and day out. It worked but it was hard. — Frederick Barthelme

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

Gus the driver is everywhere and yet he appears nowhere, not in portraits or photographs, not even in the stories of men like Barthelme and Carver, who were all about guys with jobs and prospects like Gus's but who insisted on more sorrow, more angst, than Gus remotely manifests. If Gus weeps sometimes for no reason, if he stands despairing in the aisle of a Wal-Mart, it is not apparent in his daily demeanor ... — Michael Cunningham

Why are we fighting them?
They're mad. We're sane.
How do we know?
That we're sane?
Yes.
Am I sane?
To all appearances.
And you, do you consider yourself sane?
I do.
Well, there you have it.
But don't they also consider themselves sane?
I think they know. Deep down. That they're not sane.
How must that make them feel?
Terrible, I should think. They must fight ever more fiercely, in order to deny what they know to be true. That they are not sane. — Donald Barthelme

He is mad about being small when you were big, but no, that's not it, he is mad about being helpless when you were powerful, but no, not that either, he is mad about being contingent when you were necessary, not quite it ... he is insane because when he loved you, you didn't notice. — Donald Barthelme

Yes, the saint was underrated quite a bit, then, mostly by people who didn't like things that were ineffable ...
... a lot of people don't like things that are unearthly, the things of this earth are good enough for them, and they don't mind telling you so. "If he'd just go out and get a job, like everybody else, then he could be saintly all day long ... "
- from "The Temptations of St. Anthony," by Donald Barthelme — 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

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

It is difficult to keep the public interested. The public demands new wonders piled on new wonders. Often we don't know where our next marvel is coming from. The supply of strange ideas is not endless. — Donald Barthelme

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

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

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

Little is known about her. We are assured, however, that the same damnable involvements that obsess us obsess her too. Copulation. Strangeness. Applause. — Donald Barthelme

Pia was chopping up an enormous cabbage, a cabbage big as a basketball. The cabbage was of an extraordinary size. It was a big cabbage. "That's a big cabbage," Edward said. "Big," Pia said. — 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

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

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

Notable American Women is a weird nougat of a book that suggests Coetzee, Kafka, Beckett, Barthelme, O'Brien, Orwell, Paley, Borges-and none of them exactly. Finally you just have to chew it for its own private juice. — Padgett Powell

The mind carries you with it, away from what you are supposed to do, toward things that cannot be explained rationally, toward difficulty, lack of clarity, late-afternoon light. — Donald Barthelme

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

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

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

The snow is coming," she said. "Soon it will be snow time. Together then as in other snow times. Drinking busthead 'round the fire. Truth is a locked room that we knock the lock off from time to time, and then board up again. Tomorrow you will hurt me, and I will inform you that you have done so, and so on and so on. To hell with it. Come, viridian friend, come and sup with me. — Donald Barthelme

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

Fragments are the only forms I trust. — Donald Barthelme

Fathers are teachers of the true and not-true, and no father ever knowingly teaches what is not true. In a cloud of unknowing, then, the father proceeds with his instruction. — Donald Barthelme

Dun-colored fathers tend to shy at obstacles, and therefore you do not want a father of this color, because life, in one sense, is nothing but obstacles, and his continual shying will reduce your nerves to grease. — Donald Barthelme

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

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

Nothing like a suck of the breast. — Donald Barthelme

Irruption of the magical in the life of Snow White: Snow White knows a singing bone. The singing bone has told her various stories which have left her troubled and confused: of a bear transformed into a king's son, of an immense treasure at the bottom of a brook, of a crystal casket in which there is a cap that makes the wearer invisible. This must not continue. The behavior of the bone is unacceptable. The bone must be persuaded to confine itself to events and effects susceptible of confirmation by the instrumentarium of the physical sciences. Someone must reason with the bone. — Donald Barthelme

She said things and I nodded. I didn't pay attention. She didn't pay attention to me. We floated through our days in that way. — Frederick Barthelme

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

Immature citizens in several sizes were massed before a large factorylike structure where advanced techniques transformed them into true-thinking right-acting members of the three social classes, lower, middle, and upper middle. — Donald Barthelme

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

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

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

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

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

There is a feeling of disbelief that comes over you, that takes over, and you kind of go through the motions. You do what you're supposed to do, but in fact you're not there at all. — Frederick Barthelme

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

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