Donald Barthelme Quotes

We like books that have a lot of dreck in them, matter which presents itself as not wholly relevant (or indeed, at all relevant) but which, carefully attended to, can supply a kind of “sense” of what is going on. This “sense” is not to be obtained by reading between the lines (for there is nothing there, in those white spaces) but by reading the lines themselves—looking at them and so arriving at a feeling not of satisfaction exactly, that is too much to expect, but of having read them, of having “completed” them.

Will you be wanting to contest the divorce?" I asked Mrs. Davis.
"I should think not," she said calmly, "although I suppose one of us should, for the fun of the thing. An uncontested divorce always seems to me contrary to the spirit of divorce.

—What did you do today? —Went to the grocery store and Xeroxed a box of English muffins, two pounds of ground veal and an apple. In flagrant violation of the Copyright Act. —You had your nap, I remember that— —I had my nap. —Lunch, I remember that, there was lunch, slept with Susie after lunch, then your nap, woke up, right?, went Xeroxing, right?, read a book not a whole book but part of a book— —Talked to Happy on the telephone saw the seven o’clock news did not wash dishes want to clean up some of this mess? —If one does nothing but listen to the new music, everything else drifts, frays. Did Odysseus feel this way when he and Diomedes decided to steal Athene’s statue from the Trojans, so that they would become dejected and lose the war? I don’t think so, but who is to know what effect the new music of that remote time had on its hearers? —Or how it compares to the new music of this time? —One can only conjecture.

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.

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.

Where is my daddy? asked the emerald. My da? Moll dropped a glass, which shattered. Your father. Yes, said the emerald, amn’t I supposed to have one? He’s not here. Noticed that, said the emerald. I’m never sure what you know and what you don’t know. I ask in true perplexity. He was Deus Lunus. The moon god. Sometimes thought of as the man in the moon. Bosh! said the emerald. I don’t believe it. Do you believe I’m your mother? I do. Do you believe you’re an emerald? I am an emerald. Used to be, said Moll, women wouldn’t drink from a glass into which the moon had shone. For fear of getting knocked up. Surely this is a superstition? Hoo, hoo, said Moll. I like superstition. I thought the moon was female. Don’t be culture-bound. It’s been female in some cultures at some times, and in others, not. What did it feel like? The experience. Not a proper subject for discussion with a child. The emerald sulking. Green looks here and there. Well it wasn’t the worst. Wasn’t the worst. I had an orgasm that lasted three hours. I judge that not the worst.

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.

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.”

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

—There’s a thing the children say. —What do the children say? —They say: Will you always love me? —Always. —Will you always remember me? —Always. —Will you remember me a year from now? —Yes, I will. —Will you remember me two years from now? —Yes, I will. —Will you remember me five years from now? —Yes, I will. —Knock, knock. —Who’s there? —You see?

Do they lie? Fervently. Do they steal? Only silver and gold. Do they remember? I am in constant touch. Hardly a day passes. The children. Some can’t spell, still. Took a walk in the light-manufacturing district, where everything’s been converted. Lots of little shops, wine bars. Saw some strange things. Saw a group of square steel plates arranged on a floor. Very interesting. Saw a Man Mountain Dean dressed in heavenly blue. Wild, chewing children. They were small. Petite. Out of scale. They came and went. Doors banging. They were of different sexes but wore similar clothes. Wandered away, then they wandered back. They’re vague, you know, they tell you things in a vague way. Asked me to leave, said they’d had enough. Enough what? I asked. Enough of my lip, they said. Although the truth was that I had visited upon them only the palest of apothegms—the one about the salt losing its savor, the one about the fowls of the air.

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."

True dragons are Danish and speak Danish, a tongue that the Danes themselves describe as less a language than a throat disease. To attract a dragon, one chains a naked maiden to a rock. The maiden must be chained to the rock in such a way that every part of her is visible to the dragon. Many famous paintings demonstrate the technique; Ingres's Angelica Saved by Ruggiero is an example. After the dragon has inspected your maiden to its heart's content, you issue one of the conventional formal challenges, in Danish—'Jeg udfordre dig til ridderlig camp' is the way one usually puts it—and then the fight begins.

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

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.