American author (1931-1989)
Charm ... is the dead green bug on the golden leaf of occasion.
DONALD BARTHELME
"Parachutes in the Trees"
Best not to anticipate too much ... it jiggles the possibilities.
DONALD BARTHELME
The Dead Father
However much the writer might long to be, in his work, simple, honest, and straightforward, these virtues are no longer available to him. He discovers that in being simple, honest, and straightforward, nothing much happens: he speaks the speakable, whereas what we are looking for is the as-yet unspeakable, the as-yet unspoken.
DONALD BARTHELME
"Not-Knowing"
I am never needlessly obscure--I am needfully obscure, when I am obscure.
DONALD BARTHELME
interview, Splice Today, September 2, 2009
When a child is born, the locus of one’s hopes ... shifts, slightly. Not altogether, not all at once. But you feel it, this displacement. You speak up, strike attitudes, like the mother of a tiny Lollabrigida. Drunk with possibility once more.
DONALD BARTHELME
"See the Moon?"
Strings of language extend in every direction to bind the world into a rushing, ribald whole.
DONALD BARTHELME
"The Indian Uprising"
One of the pleasures of art is that it enables the mind to move in unanticipated directions, to make connections that may be in some sense errors but are fruitful nonetheless.
DONALD BARTHELME
"Reifications"
Yes, success is everything. Failure is more common. Most achieve a sort of middling thing, but fortunately one's situation is always blurred, you never know absolutely quite where you are.
DONALD BARTHELME
"The Crisis"
No man's plenum ... is impervious to the awl of God's will.
DONALD BARTHELME
Snow White
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.
DONALD BARTHELME
"At The End Of The Mechanical Age"
Capitalism places every man in competition with his fellows for a share of the available wealth. A few people accumulate big piles, but most do not. The sense of community falls victim to this struggle.
DONALD BARTHELME
"The Rise of Capitalism"
You must change the people you are speaking to so that you appear, to yourself, to be still alive.
DONALD BARTHELME
"The Party"
Capitalism arose and took off its pajamas. Another day, another dollar. Each man is valued at what he will bring in the marketplace. Meaning has been drained from work and assigned instead to remuneration.
DONALD BARTHELME
"The Rise of Capitalism"
Any fool can cry wolf; to cry sheep is inspired, the work of a subtle, contradancing mind.
DONALD BARTHELME
"Jim Love Up to Now: An Introduction"
There is a realm of possible knowledge which can be reached by artists, which is not susceptible of mathematical verification but which is true. This is sometimes spoken as the ineffable. If there is any word I detest in the language, this would be it, but the fact that it exists, the word ineffable, is suspicious in that it suggests that there might be something that is ineffable. And I believe that that’s the place artists are trying to get to, and I further believe that when they are successful, they reach it.
DONALD BARTHELME
"A Symposium of Fiction"
I think that this thing, my work, has made me, in a sense, what I am. The work possesses a consciousness which shapes that of the worker. The work flatters the worker. Only the strongest worker can do this work, the work says. You must be a fine fellow, that you can do this work. But disaffection is also possible. The worker grows careless. The worker pays slight regard to the work, he ignores the work, he flirts with other work, he is unfaithful to the work. The work is insulted. And perhaps it finds little ways of telling the worker... The work slips in the hands of the worker--a little cut on the finger. You understand? The work becomes slow, sulky, consumes more time, becomes more tiring. The gaiety that once existed between the worker and the work has evaporated. A fine situation! Don’t you think?
DONALD BARTHELME
"The Genius"
Truth ... is a hard apple, whether one is throwing it or catching it.
DONALD BARTHELME
"Rebecca"
Every writer in the country can write a beautiful sentence, or a hundred. What I am interested in is the ugly sentence that is also somehow beautiful.
DONALD BARTHELME
"On Paraguay"
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.
DONALD BARTHELME
Snow White
The self cannot be escaped, but it can be, with ingenuity and hard work, distracted.
DONALD BARTHELME
"Daumier"