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His examiner said severely: Baskerville, you blank round, discursiveness is not literature. The aim of literature, Baskerville replied grandly, is the creation of a strange object covered with fur which breaks your heart.
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
Literature
Round
Examiner
Heart
Aim
Grandly
Rounds
Severely
Object
Fur
Objects
Replied
Creation
Breaks
Strange
Blank
Break
Covered
More quotes by 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
Food ... is the topmost taper on the golden candelabrum of existence.
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
Is death that which gives meaning to life? And I said, no, life is that which gives meaning to life.
Donald 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
Maybe writing can't be taught, but editing can be taught—prayer, fasting and self-mutilation.
Donald Barthelme
Is it permitted to differ with Kierkegaard? Not only permitted but necessary. If you love him.
Donald Barthelme
I think writers like old cities and are made very nervous by new cities.
Donald Barthelme
There's not a strong autobiographical strain in my fiction. A few bits of fact here and there.
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 self cannot be escaped, but it can be, with ingenuity and hard work, distracted.
Donald Barthelme
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
Is death that which gives meaning to life?
Donald Barthelme
The death of God left the angels in a strange position.
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 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
The aim of literature ... is the creation of a strange object covered with fur which breaks your heart.
Donald Barthelme
I am never needlessly obscure - I am needfully obscure, when I am obscure.
Donald Barthelme
Succeed! It has been done, and with a stupidity that can astound the most experienced.
Donald Barthelme
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
