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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
There was no particular point at which I stopped being promising.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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Write about what you're afraid of.
Donald Barthelme
Succeed! It has been done, and with a stupidity that can astound the most experienced.
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
Food ... is the topmost taper on the golden candelabrum of existence.
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
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.
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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.
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The important thing is the educational experience itself — how to survive it.
Donald Barthelme
The aim of literature ... is the creation of a strange object covered with fur which breaks your heart.
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
The self cannot be escaped, but it can be, with ingenuity and hard work, distracted.
Donald Barthelme
Is death that which gives meaning to life? And I said, no, life is that which gives meaning to life.
Donald Barthelme
And I sat there getting drunker and drunker and more in love and more in love.
Donald Barthelme
Endings are elusive, middles are nowhere to be found, but worst of all is to begin, to begin, to begin.
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
Best not to anticipate too much ... it jiggles the possibilities.
Donald Barthelme