Donald Barthelme
Donald Barthelme
This article is about the author, Donald Barthelme Jr. For his father, the architect, see Donald Barthelme...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth7 April 1931
CountryUnited States of America
writing knowing doe
The writer is one who, embarking upon a task, does not know what to do... Writing is a process of dealing with not-knowing, a forcing of what and how.
heart fur literature
The aim of literature ... is the creation of a strange object covered with fur which breaks your heart.
shoes looks frogs
How does one conquer fear, Don B.?" "One takes a frog and sews it to one's shoe," he said. "The left or the right?" Don B. gave me a pitying look. "Well, you'd look mighty funny going down the street with only one frog sewed to your shoes, wouldn't you?" he said. "One frog on each shoe.
found worst elusive
Endings are elusive, middles are nowhere to be found, but worst of all is to begin, to begin, to begin.
firsts connected
How can you be alienated without first having been connected?
fighting thinking order
--Why are we fighting them? --They're mad. We're sane. --How do we know? --That we're sane? --Yes. --Am I sane? --To all appearances. --And you, do you consider yourself sane? --I do. --Well, there you have it. --But don't they also consider themselves sane? --I think they know. Deep down. That they're not sane. --How must that make them feel? --Terrible, I should think. They must fight ever more fiercely, in order to deny what they know to be true. That they are not sane.
messages has-beens
We are what we have been told about ourselves. We are the sum of the messages we have received. The true messages. The false messages.
angel strange position
The death of God left the angels in a strange position.
writing
Write about what you're afraid of.
hate moon
See the moon? It hates us.
mother drama father
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.
giving life-is said
Is death that which gives meaning to life? And I said, no, life is that which gives meaning to life.
thinking cities nervous
I think writers like old cities and are made very nervous by new cities.
educational important important-things
The important thing is the educational experience itself — how to survive it.