114 Quotes by John Barth

The story of your life is not your life; it's your story.

The first obligation of the writer is to be interesting. To be interesting; not to change the world.

Self knowledge is always bad news.

Those rituals of getting ready to write produce a kind of trance state.

In art as in lovemaking, heartfelt ineptitude has its appeal and so does heartless skill, but what you want is passionate virtuosity.

Everyone is necessarily the hero of his own life story.

The story of your life is not your life; it’s your story.

The Bible is not man’s word about God, but God’s word about man.

Finally you begin to make your mistakes on the highest level-let’s say the upper slopes of slippery Parnassus-and it’s at that point you need coaching.