The first obligation of the writer is to be interesting. To be interesting; not to change the world. — 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… — John Barth Copy Share Image
“How come you write the way you do?” an apprentice writer in my Johns Hopkins workshop once disingenuously asked Donald Barthelme, who… — John Barth Copy Share Image
You’re probably wasting time on things like eating and sleeping. Cease that, and read all of philosophy and all of literature. Also… — John Barth Copy Share Image
Those rituals of getting ready to write produce a kind of trance state. — 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
“Am I boring you? I don't really care, I suppose, but I'll be more comfortable if I knew all this interested you. No doubt… — John Barth Copy Share Image
“The difference here 'twixt simple and witty folk, if the truth be known, is that your plain man cares much for what stand ye… — John Barth Copy Share Image
