More history is made by secret handshakes than by battles, bills and proclamations.

- John Barth

Though life's tuition is always ruinous, inexorably we learn.

- John Barth

Everyone is necessarily the hero of his own life story.

- John Barth

Self knowledge is always bad news.

- John Barth

Nothing is intrinsically valuable; the value of everything is attributed to it, assigned to it from outside the thing itself, by people.

- John Barth

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

- John Barth

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

- John Barth

Every artist joins a conversation that's been going on for generations, even millennia, before he or she joins the scene.

- John Barth

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

- John Barth