Donald Barthelme

“I am never needlessly obscure—I am needfully obscure, when I am obscure.”

“It is not true that Kafka wanted Brod to burn his manuscripts after his death. Rather it is the case that Kafka was on fire to be published...rushed to the postbox day after day...ate with editors...intrigued for favorable notices...read the Writer’s Digest...consorted with critics...autographed napkins...made himself available to librarians...spoke on the radio...”

“Oh, there is nothing better than intelligent conversation except thrashing about in bed with a naked girl and Egmont Light Italic.”

“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."”

“The distinction between children and adults, while probably useful for some purposes, is at bottom a specious one, I feel. There are only individual egos, crazy for love.”

“[picket sign] COGITO ERGO NOTHING!....[casual passerby:] "Cogito ergo your ass"....”

“It's true," Carl said, "with a kind of merde-y inner truth which shines forth as the objective correlative of what actually did happen, back home.”

“No man's plenum, Mr. Quistgaard, is impervious to the awl of God's will.”

““Sometimes I see signs on walls saying Kill the Rich,” Clem said. “And sometimes Kill the Rich has been crossed out and Harm the Rich written underneath. A clear gain for civilization I would say. And the one that says Jean-Paul Sartre Is a Fartre. Something going on there, you must admit. Dim flicker of something. ...””

“Take me home," Snow White said. "Take me home instantly. If there is anything worse than being home, it is being out.”

““How old are you Hogo.” “Thirty-five Jane. A not unpleasant age to be.” “You don’t mind then. That you are not young.” “It has its buggy aspects as what does not?” “You don’t mind then that you are sagging in the direction of death.” “No, Jane.””

“[Snow White talking to herself] “... No wonder we who are twenty-two don’t trust anybody over twelve. That is where you find people who know the score, under twelve. I think I will go out and speak to some eleven-year-olds, now, to refresh myself. Now or soon.””

“ANATHEMATIZATION OF THE WORLD IS NOT AN ADEQUATE RESPONSE TO THE WORLD.”

“The present goal of the individual in group enterprises is to avoid dominance; leadership is felt to be a character disorder.”

“As a magician works with the unique compressibility of doves, finding some, losing others in the same silk foulard, so the rebels fold scratchy, relaxed meanings into their smallest actions.”

“Self-criticism sessions were held, but these produced more criticism than could usefully be absorbed or accomodated.”

“—Is it permitted to differ with Kierkegaard? —Not only permitted but necessary. If you love him.”

“—There’s a thing the children say. —You see?”

“Naked girls with the heads of Marx and Malraux prone and helpless in the glare of the headlights, tried to give them a little joie de vivre but maybe it didn’t take, their constant bickering and smallness, it’s like a stroke of lightning, the world reminds you of its power, tracheotomies right and left, I am spinning, my pretty child, don’t scratch, pick up your feet, the long nights, spent most of my time listening, this is a test of the system, this is only a test.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I didn’t go to church because I was a black sheep. There were five children in my family and the males rotated the position of black sheep among us, the oldest one being the black sheep for a while while he was in his DWI period or whatever and then getting grayer as he maybe got a job or was in the service and then finally becoming a white sheep when he got married and had a grandchild. My sister was never a black sheep because she was a girl.”

“The actors feel that the music played before the curtain rises will put the audience in the wrong mood. The playwright suggests that the (purposefully lugubrious) music be played at twice-speed. This peps it up somewhat while retaining its essentially dark and gloomy character. The actors listen carefully, and are pleased.”

“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.”

““I smell fennel,” Launcelot said. “That reminds me, I should tell you I have discovered a specific for maims. You take salt, good-quality river mud, and bee urine, and slather it on the maim and hold it there for two days. Works like a charm. Gathering the bee urine is a bit of a bore.””

““How does one conquer fear, Don B.?” “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.””

“My deranged mother has written another book. This one is called The Bough and is even worse that the others. I refer not to its quality—it exhibits the usual “coruscating wit” and “penetrating social observation”—but to the extent to which it utilizes, as a kind of mulch pile, the lives of her children.”

““These games are marvelous,” Amanda said. “I like them especially because they are so meaningless and boring, and trivial. These qualities, once regarded as less than desirable, are now everywhere enthroned as the key elements in our psychological lives, as reflected in the art of the period as well as—””

““The Continental Congress resolved that your famous plainneff and modefty would be ill ferved were it known that a houfe for your horfe was paid for from the public purfe.””

““Being merciless, while not exactly easy, is finally a job like any other. It’s theater. It’s got nothing to do with my private life. Still, sometimes when I used to yell at my kids, I wondered if I was maybe...putting a little too much into it. They’re grown now, so the question is moot. They seem OK. Roderick is at Harvard and Betsy is married and has a couple of kids of her own.””

“Who among us is not thinking about divorce, except for a few tiny-minded stick-in-the-muds who don’t count?”

“People who had, in the past, suffered from technophobia suffered even more. Others took other positions. Things were not so bad. Things could be worse. Worse things could be imagined. Worse things had been endured and triumphed over, in the past. This was not the worst. The worst was yet to come.”

“MAGGIE: Did you have a good time? MAGGIE: Hot, rinse, spin dry.”

“HENRY: Now it is necessary to court her, and win her, and put on this clean dressing gown, and cut my various nails, and drink something that will kill the millions of germs in my mouth, and say something flattering, and be witty and bonny, and hale and kinky, all just to ease this wrinkle in the groin. It seems a high price.”

“BILL: … 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.”

“I keep wondering if, say, there is intelligent life on other planets, the scientists argue that something like two percent of the other planets have the conditions, the physical conditions, to support life in the way it happened here, did Christ visit each and every planet, go through the same routine, the Agony in the Garden, the Crucifixion, and so on...”

“I obey the Commandments, the sensible ones. Where they don’t know what they’re talking about I ignore them. I keep thinking about the story of the two old women in church listening to the priest discoursing on the dynamics of the married state. At the end of the sermon one turns to the other and says, “I wish I knew as little about it as he does.””

“Instant gratification is not as good as that gratification which comes dripping slow, over the sere seasons.”

“As Jules Renard said, no matter how much care an author takes to write as few books as possible, there will be people who haven’t heard of some of them.”