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.
The aim of literature ... is the creation of a strange object covered with fur which breaks your heart. - Donald Barthelme
The aim of literature ... is the creation of a strange object covered with fur which breaks your heart.
- Donald Barthelme
There was no particular point at which I stopped being promising. - Donald Barthelme
There was no particular point at which I stopped being promising.
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
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.
Art is not difficult because it wishes to be difficult, but because it wishes to be art. - Donald Barthelme
Art is not difficult because it wishes to be difficult, but because it wishes to be art.
The self cannot be escaped, but it can be, with ingenuity and hard work, distracted. - Donald Barthelme
The self cannot be escaped, but it can be, with ingenuity and hard work, distracted.
Write about what you're afraid of. - Donald Barthelme
Write about what you're afraid of.
The task is not so much to solve problems as to propose questions. - Donald Barthelme
The task is not so much to solve problems as to propose questions.
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 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.
The best way to live is by not knowing what will happen to you at the end of the day. - Donald Barthelme
The best way to live is by not knowing what will happen to you at the end of the day.
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