The aim of literature ... is the creation of a strange object covered with fur which breaks your heart.

- Donald Barthelme

The self cannot be escaped, but it can be, with ingenuity and hard work, distracted.

- Donald Barthelme

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

Art is not difficult because it wishes to be difficult, but because it wishes to be art.

- Donald Barthelme

There was no particular point at which I stopped being promising.

- Donald Barthelme

Write about what you're afraid of.

- Donald Barthelme

The task is not so much to solve problems as to propose questions.

- Donald Barthelme

The writer is one who, embarking upon a task, does not know what to do... Writing is a process of dealing with not-knowing, a forcing of what and how.

- Donald Barthelme

The best way to live is by not knowing what will happen to you at the end of the day.

- Donald Barthelme