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Quote by John Barth

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““There was some simple, radical difference about him. He hoped it was genius, feared it was madness, devoted himself to amiability and inconspicuousness.””

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More by John Barth

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…

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“So, I begin each day with a gesture of cynicism, and close it with a gesture of faith; or, if you prefer, begin it…

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I admire writers who can make complicated things simple, but my own talent has been to make simple things complicated.

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“That clever folk care less for what ye think than why ye think it.”

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Printed prose is historically a most peculiar, almost an aberrant way of telling stories, and by far the most inherently anesthetic: It is the…

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“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…

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Self knowledge is always bad news.

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

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Yet everyone begins in the same place; how is it that most go along without difficulty but a few lose their way?

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A curious thing about written literature: It is about four thousand years old, but we have no way of knowing whether four thousand years…

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Nothing is loathsomer than the self-loathing of a self one loathes.

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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…

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Explore all 97 John Barth quotes