"--Why are we fighting them? --They're mad. We're……" — Donald Barthelme
"--Why are we fighting them? --They're mad. We're sane. --How do we know? --That we're sane? --Yes. --Am I sane? --To all appearances. --And you, do you consider yourself sane? --I do. --Well, there you have it. --But don't they also consider themselves sane? --I think they know. Deep down. That they're not sane. --How must that make them feel? --Terrible, I should think. They must fight ever more fiercely, in order to deny what they know to be true. That they are not sane."
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Donald Barthelme
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40 Quotes by Donald Barthelme
Donald Barthelme has 40 quotes on this site.
A few more worth reading:
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Food ... is the topmost taper on the golden candelabrum of existence.
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The writer is one who, emnbarking upon a task, does not know what to do.
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Anathematization of the world is not an adequate response to the world.
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I don’t think you can talk about progress in art—movement, but not progress.
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The best way to live is by not knowing what will happen to you at the end of the day...
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The important thing is the educational experience itself — how to survive it.
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I think writers like old cities and are made very nervous by new cities.
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Is death that which gives meaning to life? And I said, no, life is that which gives meaning to life.
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Endings are elusive, middles are nowhere to be found, but worst of all is to begin, to begin, to begin.
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My mother studied English and drama at the University of Pennsylvania, where my father studied architecture. She was a great…
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Is death that which gives meaning to life?
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The not-knowing is crucial to art, is what permits art to be made. Without the scanning process engendered by not-knowing,…
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More All Quotes
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Total loyalty is possible only when fidelity is emptied of all concrete content, from which changes of mind might naturally…
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No cause is left but the most ancient of all, the one, in fact, that from the beginning of our…
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The ultimate end of human acts is eudaimonia, happiness in the sense of living well, which all men desire; all…
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The new always happens against the overwhelming odds of statistical laws and their probability, which for all practical, everyday purposes…
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Where all are guilty, no one is; confessions of collective guilt are the best possible safeguard against the discovery of…
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We have almost succeeded in leveling all human activities to the common denominator of securing the necessities of life and…
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I keep my friends as misers do their treasure, because, of all the things granted us by wisdom, none is…
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We must all make peace so that we can all live in peace.
— Jean-Bertrand Aristide
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The spirit of Ubuntu, that once led Haiti to emerge as the first independent black nation in 1804, helped Venezuela,…
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As we all know, many people remain buried under tons of rubble and debris, waiting to be rescued. When we…
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Wise people, even though all laws were abolished, would still lead the same life.
— Aristophanes
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A friend to all is a friend to none.
— Aristotle
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