“Everyone is necessarily the hero of his own life story. Hamlet could be told from Polonius's point of view and called The… — John Barth Copy Share Image
Choosing is existence. To the extent that you don't choose, you don't exist, — John Barth Copy Share Image
“In life,” he said, “there are no essentially major or minor characters. To that extent, all fiction and biography, and most historiography,… — John Barth Copy Share Image
“ On the proper role of coincidence in fiction —more exactly in storymaking, ... Aristotle declares in effect that since real life… — John Barth Copy Share Image
“...that language may be a compound code, and that the discovery of an enormous complexity beneath a simple surface may well be… — John Barth Copy Share Image
Tis e'er the wont of simple folk to prize the deed and o'erlook the motive, and of learned folk to discount the deed and… — John Barth Copy Share Image
“So, I begin each day with a gesture of cynicism, and close it with a gesture of faith; or, if you prefer, begin it… — John Barth Copy Share Image
I admire writers who can make complicated things simple, but my own talent has been to make simple things complicated. — John Barth Copy Share Image
Printed prose is historically a most peculiar, almost an aberrant way of telling stories, and by far the most inherently anesthetic: It is the… — John Barth Copy Share Image
“There's a great difficulty in making choices if you have any imagination at all. Faced with such a multitude of desireable choices, no one… — John Barth Copy Share Image
The first obligation of the writer is to be interesting. To be interesting; not to change the world. — John Barth Copy Share Image
Yet everyone begins in the same place; how is it that most go along without difficulty but a few lose their way? — John Barth Copy Share Image
A curious thing about written literature: It is about four thousand years old, but we have no way of knowing whether four thousand years… — John Barth Copy Share Image
He wishes he had never entered the funhouse. But he has. Then he wishes he were dead. But he's not. Therefore he will construct… — John Barth Copy Share Image
