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

Donald Barthelme

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Donald Barthelme
Age: 58 †
Born: 1931
Born: April 7
Died: 1989
Died: July 23
Author
Journalist
Novelist
Philosopher
Reporter
Writer
Philadelphia
Pennsylvania
Astound
Experienced
Stupidity
Succeed
Done

More quotes by Donald Barthelme

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Maybe writing can't be taught, but editing can be taught—prayer, fasting and self-mutilation.
Donald Barthelme
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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
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And I sat there getting drunker and drunker and more in love and more in love.
Donald Barthelme
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Now it is necessary to court her, and win her, and put on this clean dressing gown, and cut my various nails, and drink something that will kill the millions of germs in my mouth, and say something flattering, and be witty and bonny, and hale and kinky, all just to ease this wrinkle in the groin. It seems a high price.
Donald Barthelme
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And I sat there getting drunker and drunker and more in love and more in love...And you can never touch a girl in the same way more than once, twice, or another number of times however much you may wish to hold, wrap, or otherwise fix her hand, or look, or some other quality, or incident, known to you previously.
Donald Barthelme
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Is death that which gives meaning to life? And I said, no, life is that which gives meaning to life.
Donald Barthelme
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The self cannot be escaped, but it can be, with ingenuity and hard work, distracted.
Donald Barthelme
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I think writers like old cities and are made very nervous by new cities.
Donald Barthelme
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Is death that which gives meaning to life?
Donald Barthelme
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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
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Is it permitted to differ with Kierkegaard? Not only permitted but necessary. If you love him.
Donald Barthelme
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Best not to anticipate too much ... it jiggles the possibilities.
Donald Barthelme
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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
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The important thing is the educational experience itself — how to survive it.
Donald Barthelme
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There's not a strong autobiographical strain in my fiction. A few bits of fact here and there.
Donald Barthelme
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Doubt is a necessary precondition tomeaningful action. Fear is the great mover in the end.
Donald Barthelme
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Who among us is not thinking about divorce, except for a few tiny-minded stick-in-the-muds who don't count?
Donald Barthelme
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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
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Art is not difficult because it wishes to be difficult, rather because it wishes to be art. However much the writer might long to be straightforward, these virtues are no longer available to him. He discovers that in being simple, honest, straightforward, nothing much happens.
Donald Barthelme
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The death of God left the angels in a strange position.
Donald Barthelme