135 Quotes by Donald Barthelme

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

Write about what you’re afraid of.

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

Of course we did everything right, insofar as we were able to imagine what “right” was.

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.

Well chaps first I’d like to say a few vile things more or less at random, not only because it is expected of me but also because I enjoy it.

Goals incapable of attainment have driven many a man to despair, but despair is easier to get to than that – one need merely look out of the window, for example.

It is difficult to keep the public interested. The public demands new wonders piled on new wonders. Often we don’t know where our next marvel is coming from. The supply of strange ideas is not endless.

A process of accretion. Barnacles growing on a wreck or a rock. I’d rather have a wreck than a ship that sails. Things attach themselves to wrecks. Strange fish find your wreck or rock to be a good feeding ground; after a while you’ve got a situation with possibilities.