Donald Barthelme Quotes

I am never needlessly obscure-I am needfully obscure, when I am obscure.

Donald Barthelme

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Quotes to Explore

• 'Really,' thought I, 'we call Baltimore the 'Monumental City' for its two marble columns, and here is Edinburg with one at every street-corner!'

  

  Bayard Taylor
  • City
  • Thought
  • Marble

• Creating things sometimes is difficult.

  

  Warren Littlefield
  • Sometimes
  • Things
  • Difficult

• Writing for children hadn't occurred to me when I was younger, but nine years of teaching in the upper elementary grades had given me a deep appreciation of the gifts and graces that are specific to individuals with 10 or 11 years of experience as human beings.

  

  Zilpha Keatley Snyder
  • Writing
  • Children
  • Experience

• I am proud to be a member of the Congress of the United States.

  

  Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.
  • Proud
  • United States
  • Member

• The very phrase 'Make America great again' implies some kind of reset to a time long since passed. A mission to restore America to a previous default setting where American economic superiority was without peer, factories and manufacturing plants were humming, and jobs were plentiful for anyone who wanted one.

  

  Fabrizio Moreira
  • Time
  • Great
  • Long

• I never go anywhere. I do sketches and make phone calls, and people visit. It's more fun to come to Paris.

  

  Karl Lagerfeld
  • People
  • Fun
  • Paris

• It is hard work to give life to new characters every single day. It is not as if I am God. I am just a tired, middle-aged woman trying to keep going.

  

  Karin Fossum
  • Life
  • Work
  • God

• I love finding new creative partnerships but then continuing the partnerships I'm already in.

  

  Damon Lindelof
  • Love
  • Creative
  • Partnerships

• For me to have the opportunity to stay with one character for, God willing, a long period of time, is really exciting.

  

  Laura Linney
  • Time
  • God
  • Long

• A revolutionary idea is usually one with its sleeves rolled up.

  

  Navjot Singh Sidhu
  • Up
  • Idea
  • Revolutionary

• For all its terrible faults, in one sense America is still the last, best hope of mankind, because it spells out so vividly the kind of happiness that most people actually want, regardless of what they are told they ought to want.

  

  Ferdinand Mount
  • People
  • America
  • Hope

• Love is a great emotion, but I believe it's not just about romance; it could be love for nature, people, for relationships.

  

  Rani Mukerji
  • People
  • Love
  • Nature

• An outsider's point of view is always handy.

  

  Pat Oliphant
  • Point
  • View
  • Point Of View

• You know, the Bible is so clear. Go to Genesis chapter nine and you will find the death penalty clearly stated in Genesis chapter nine... God ordains the death penalty!

  

  Rafael Cruz
  • God
  • Death
  • Bible

• The message is clear: libraries matter. Their solid presence at the heart of our towns sends the proud signal that everyone - whoever they are, whatever their educational background, whatever their age or their needs - is welcome.

  

  Kate Mosse
  • Heart
  • Age
  • Proud

• I define poetry as celebration and confrontation. When we witness something, are we responsible for what we witness? That's an on-going existential question. Perhaps we are and perhaps there's a kind of daring, a kind of necessary energetic questioning. Because often I say it's not what we know, it's what we can risk discovering.

  

  Yusef Komunyakaa
  • Question
  • Poetry
  • Risk

• Many women have more power than they recognize, and they're very hesitant to use it, for they fear they won't be loved.

  

  Patricia Schroeder
  • Women
  • Power
  • Fear

• The Italians have their priorities right: They're driven, they do their work, but they really enjoy the day-to-day and they don't put off the enjoyment of the everyday for some future goal.

  

  Frances Mayes
  • Work
  • Future
  • Goal

• I thought that it would be easier to learn that if I worked in motion pictures. So I went to work with one motion picture producer who was developing a color system. This didn't do to me much good. All I did was pick filters for the camera.

  

  John Hench
  • Good
  • Work
  • Picture

• Maybe it's time to go back 2,000 years for a spiritual renaissance. If not, our days may be numbered and a terrible implosion is coming. There is no more middle ground. It is one or the other.

  

  Joel C. Rosenberg
  • Time
  • May
  • Spiritual

• My father died shortly after I was twenty-one; and being left well off, and having a taste for travel and adventure, I resigned, for a time, all pursuit of the almighty dollar, and became a desultory wanderer over the face of the earth.

  

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
  • Earth
  • Adventure
  • My Father

• Giving governors more leeway in administering health care could represent a small, positive development in the ongoing saga of Obamacare. Unfortunately, instead of choosing flexibility, President Obama and his left-leaning advisers always default to rigid 'Washington knows best' answers.

  

  Fred Upton
  • Giving
  • Small
  • Health

• Chicago is my hometown and will always have a special place in my heart.

  

  Kenneth Choi
  • Heart
  • Chicago

• I am never needlessly obscure-I am needfully obscure, when I am obscure.

  

  Donald Barthelme