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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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Donald Barthelme
Age: 58 †
Born: 1931
Born: April 7
Died: 1989
Died: July 23
Author
Journalist
Novelist
Philosopher
Reporter
Writer
Philadelphia
Pennsylvania
Giving
Life
Meaning
Gives
Death

More quotes by Donald Barthelme

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Capitalism places every man in competition with his fellows for a share of the available wealth. A few people accumulate big piles, but most do not. The sense of community falls victim to this struggle.
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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Is death that which gives meaning to life?
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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The aim of literature ... is the creation of a strange object covered with fur which breaks your heart.
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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I don’t think you can talk about progress in art—movement, but not progress.
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 think you can talk about progress in art - movement, but not progress. You can speak of a point on a line for the purpose of locating things, but it's a horizontal line, not a vertical one.
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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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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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
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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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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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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
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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
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The death of God left the angels in a strange position.
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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I am never needlessly obscure - I am needfully obscure, when I am obscure.
Donald Barthelme