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
thinking cities nervous
I think writers like old cities and are made very nervous by new cities.
giving life-is said
Is death that which gives meaning to life? And I said, no, life is that which gives meaning to life.
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...
giving meaning-life
Is death that which gives meaning to life?
art thinking progress
I don’t think you can talk about progress in art—movement, but not progress.
world adequate response
Anathematization of the world is not an adequate response to the world.
crafts doe tasks
The writer is one who, emnbarking upon a task, does not know what to do.
food golden existence
Food ... is the topmost taper on the golden candelabrum of existence.
sat
And I sat there getting drunker and drunker and more in love and more in love.
art moving knowing
The not-knowing is crucial to art, is what permits art to be made. Without the scanning process engendered by not-knowing, without the possibility of having the mind move in unanticipated directions, there would be no invention.
art simple long
Art is not difficult because it wishes to be difficult, rather because it wishes to be art. However much the writer might long to be straightforward, these virtues are no longer available to him. He discovers that in being simple, honest, straightforward, nothing much happens.
self criticism session
Self-criticism sessions were held, but these produced more criticism than could usefully be absorbed or accomodated.
ifs
Is it permitted to differ with Kierkegaard? Not only permitted but necessary. If you love him.
girl children night
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.