{"author":"Donald Barthelme","author_id":"Donald+Barthelme","total_quotes":28,"quotes":[{"text":"You told me that Kafka was not a thinker, and that a 'genetic' approach to his work would disclose that much of it was only a kind of very imaginative whining. That was during the period when you were going in for wrecking operations, feeling, I suppose, that the integrity of your own mental processes was best maintained by a series of strong, unforgiving attacks. You made quite an impression on everyone, in those days: you ruffled blouse, you long magenta skirt slit to the knee, the dagger thrust into your boot. 'Is that a metaphor?' I asked, pointing to the dagger; you shook your head, smiled, said no.","author":"Donald Barthelme","tags":["kafka","metaphor"],"id":8979,"author_id":"Donald+Barthelme"},{"text":"There was a certain amount of initial argumentation about the 'meaning' of the balloon; this subsided, because we have learned not to insist on meanings, and they are rarely even looked for now, except in cases involving the simplest, safest phenomena.","author":"Donald Barthelme","tags":["fiction","humor","satire","short-story","transgressive-fiction"],"id":24217,"author_id":"Donald+Barthelme"},{"text":"I noticed that he was an Irish setter, rust-colored. He noticed that I was a Welsh sculptor, buff-colored (no, really, what did he notice? How does he think?) I reflected that he was probably a nice dog from a good home (bourgeois dog) but with certain unfortunate habits like jumping on people from high windows (rationalization: he is a member of the television generation and thus -).","author":"Donald Barthelme","tags":["dogs","perspective"],"id":42290,"author_id":"Donald+Barthelme"},{"text":"Then Wanda proposed a health. 'Health to abandoned wives!' she said. 'Well now,' I said. ''Abandoned,' that's a little strong.' 'Pushed out, jettisoned, abjured, thrown away,' she said. 'I remember,' I said, 'a degree of mutuality, in our parting.' 'And when guests came,' she said, 'you always made me sit in the kitchen.' 'I thought you liked it in the kitchen,' I said. 'You were forever telling me to get out of the bloody kitchen.' 'And when my overbite required correction,' she said, 'you would not pay for the apparatus.' 'Seven years of sitting by the window with your thumb in your mouth,' I said. 'What did you expect?' 'And when I needed a new frock,' she said, 'you hid the Master Charge.' 'There was nothing wrong with the old one,' I said, 'that a few well-placed patches couldn't have fixed.' 'And when we were invited to the Argentine Embassy,' she said, 'you made me drive the car in a chauffeur's cap, and park the car, and stand about with the other drivers outside while you chatted up the Ambassador.' 'You know no Spanish,' I pointed out. 'It was not the happiest of marriages,' she said, 'all in all.' 'There has been a sixty percent increase in single-person households in the last ten years, according to the Bureau of the Census,' I told her. 'Perhaps we are part of a trend.","author":"Donald Barthelme","tags":["marriage"],"id":99122,"author_id":"Donald+Barthelme"},{"text":"The hinder portion scalding-house good eating Curve B in addition to the usual baths and ablutions military police sumptuousness of the washhouse risking misstatements kept distances iris to iris queen of holes damp, hairy legs note of anger chanting and shouting konk sense of 'mold' on the 'muff' sense of 'talk' on the 'surface' konk2 all sorts of chemical girl who delivered the letter give it a bone plummy bare legs saturated in every belief and ignorance rational living private client bad bosom uncertain workmen mutton-tugger obedience to the rules of the logical system Lord Muck hot tears harmonica rascalthat's chaos can you produce chaos? Alice asked certainly I can produce chaos I said I produced chaos she regarded the chaos chaos is handsome and attractive she said and more durable than regret I said and more nourishing than regret she said.","author":"Donald Barthelme","tags":["alice","chaos"],"id":103399,"author_id":"Donald+Barthelme"},{"text":"Smoke, rain, abulia. What can the concerned citizen do to fight the rise of capitalism, in his own community? Study of the tides of conflict and power in a system in which there is structural inequality is an important task. A knowledge of European intellectual history since 1789 provides a useful background. Information theory offers interesting new possibilities. Passion is helpful, especially those types of passion which are non licit. Doubt is a necessary precondition to meaningful action. Fear is the great mover, in the end.","author":"Donald Barthelme","tags":["capitalism"],"id":121180,"author_id":"Donald+Barthelme"},{"text":"I myself,' said Gibbon, 'am slightly underdone in the personal worthlessness line. It was Papa's fault. He used no irony. The communications mix offered by the parent to the child is as you know twelve percent do this, eighty-two percent don't do that, and six percent huggles and endearments. That is standard. Now, to avoid boring himself or herself to death during this monition the parent enlivens the discourse with wit, usually irony of the cheaper sort. The irony ambigufies the message, but more importantly establishes in the child the sense of personal lack-of-worth. Because the child understands that one who is talked to in this way is not much of a something. Ten years of it goes a long way. Fifteen is better. That is where Pap fell down. He eschewed irony.","author":"Donald Barthelme","tags":["irony","parenting"],"id":128958,"author_id":"Donald+Barthelme"},{"text":"The aim of literature ... Is the creation of a strange object covered with fur which breaks your heart.","author":"Donald Barthelme","tags":["literature"],"id":131223,"author_id":"Donald+Barthelme"},{"text":"I visit my assistant mistress. 'Well, Azalea,' I say, sitting in the best chair, 'what has happened to you since my last visit?' Azalea tells me what happened to her. She has covered a sofa, and written a novel. Jack has behaved badly. Roger has lost his job (replaced by an electric eye). Gigi's children are in the hospital being detoxified, all three. Azalea herself is dying of love. I stroke her buttocks, which are perfection, if you can have perfection, under the capitalistic system. 'It is better to marry that to burn,' St. Paul says, but St. Paul is largely discredited now, for the toughness of his views does not accord with the experience of advanced industrial societies.","author":"Donald Barthelme","tags":["capitalism"],"id":133975,"author_id":"Donald+Barthelme"},{"text":"I wanted to say a certain thing to a certain man, a certain true thing that had crept into my head. I opened my head, at the place provided, and proceeded to pronounce the true thing that lay languishing there—that is, proceeded to propel that trueness, that felicitous trularity, from its place inside my head out into world life. The certain man stood waiting to receive it. His face reflected an eager accepting-ness. Everything was right. I propelled, using my mind, my mouth, all my muscles. I propelled. I propelled and propelled. I felt trularity inside my head moving slowly through the passage provided (stained like the caves of Lascaux with garlic, antihistamines, Berloiz, a history, a history) toward its debut on the world stage. Past my teeth, with their little brown sweaters knitted of gin and cigar smoke, toward its leap to critical scrutiny. Past my lips, with their tendency to flake away in cold weather—.","author":"Donald Barthelme","tags":["a-picture-history-of-the-war","language","speech","truth"],"id":141411,"author_id":"Donald+Barthelme"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":28,"pages":3,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}