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
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.
hate moon
See the moon? It hates us.
giving life-is said
Is death that which gives meaning to life? And I said, no, life is that which gives meaning to life.
educational important important-things
The important thing is the educational experience itself — how to survive it.
knowing the-end-of-the-day way-to-live
The best way to live is by not knowing what will happen to you at the end of the day...
world adequate response
Anathematization of the world is not an adequate response to the world.
powerful mad insane
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.
evil way looks
There is no moment that exceeds in beauty that moment when one looks at a woman and finds that she is looking at you in the same way that you are looking at her. The moment in which she bestows that look that says, "Proceed with your evil plan, sumbitch.