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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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Donald Barthelme
Age: 58 †
Born: 1931
Born: April 7
Died: 1989
Died: July 23
Author
Journalist
Novelist
Philosopher
Reporter
Writer
Philadelphia
Pennsylvania
Men
Wealth
Accumulate
People
Struggle
Falls
Share
Fellows
Community
Victim
Bigs
Capitalism
Fall
Competition
Sense
Available
Every
Places
Piles
More quotes by Donald Barthelme
Who among us is not thinking about divorce, except for a few tiny-minded stick-in-the-muds who don't count?
Donald Barthelme
I think writers like old cities and are made very nervous by new cities.
Donald Barthelme
I don’t think you can talk about progress in art—movement, but not progress.
Donald Barthelme
Is death that which gives meaning to life?
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
There's not a strong autobiographical strain in my fiction. A few bits of fact here and there.
Donald Barthelme
Food ... is the topmost taper on the golden candelabrum of existence.
Donald Barthelme
The death of God left the angels in a strange position.
Donald Barthelme
Doubt is a necessary precondition tomeaningful action. Fear is the great mover in the end.
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
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
And I sat there getting drunker and drunker and more in love and more in love.
Donald Barthelme
The important thing is the educational experience itself — how to survive it.
Donald Barthelme
Endings are elusive, middles are nowhere to be found, but worst of all is to begin, to begin, to begin.
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
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
There was no particular point at which I stopped being promising.
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
The self cannot be escaped, but it can be, with ingenuity and hard work, distracted.
Donald Barthelme
Yes, success is everything. Failure is more common. Most achieve a sort of middling thing, but fortunately one's situation is always blurred, you never know absolutely quite where you are.
Donald Barthelme
