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 s… - Donald Barthelme

[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.”

—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.

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. ...