Donald Barthelme Quotes
'How old are you Hogo.' 'Thirty-five Jane. A not unpleasant age to be.' 'You don’t mind then. That you are not young.' 'It has its buggy aspects as what does not?' 'You don’t mind then that you are sagging in the direction of death.' 'No, Jane.'
Quotes to Explore
-
Homophobia is rampant in soccer, probably more so than in any other sport. I'm not sure why.
-
I identified with white culture, and I wanted to fit in. I didn't identify with black culture. Like, I didn't like Tyler Perry movies, and I wasn't into hip-hop music. I liked Neil Young.
-
Metaphysics is a dark ocean without shores or lighthouse, strewn with many a philosophic wreck.
-
Everybody has their struggles.
-
I don't make any distinction between a popular TV series or blockbuster film and doing Shakespeare. They're different, but as long as the material is good and the intention is honourable, it's all the same to me.
-
An ordinary kitten will ask more questions than any five-year-old.
-
The Heisman is the biggest award I've ever won.
-
This country is becoming increasingly authoritarian. It's based on capital punishment.
-
Even if I'm making music for people for $20 a night, at least I'm making music.
-
I just like seeing the world, and it doesn't matter where.
-
I might be deceiving myself but I do not think that I do have an inordinate fear of death.
-
I decided to write 'True Refuge' during a major dive in my own health. Diagnosed with a genetic disease that affected my mobility, I faced tremendous fear and grief about losing the fitness and physical freedom I loved.
-
Give the peasants neither life nor death.
-
My role models have kept on changing.
-
Looking back, it puzzles me that my parents decided to stay in Shanghai when they must have known that war was imminent. But the cotton works were my father's responsibility, and duty then counted for something.
-
America is a meritocracy.
-
Surviving is the only glory in war.
-
Whenever I start a 'Potter' film, I get these dreams. The last dream I had, I was in a war and the sky was blotted with broomsticks and I couldn't find my wand. It was so intense. I always have mental, intense, war wizard dreams when I'm doing the films.
-
Religions are different roads converging to the same point. What does it matter that we take different roads, so long as we reach the same goal. Wherein is the cause for quarreling?
-
The toughest thing in hitting shouldn't be deciding when to swing. It is, for me, deciding when not to swing. You should be swinging from the time you get into the batter's box until something says don't swing.
-
A bubble that goes up is just one that could have crashed but did not.
-
I always tell my students to write the story all the way through, not to play with the language and fall in love with sentences that you then have to cut. I actually find that really difficult to do; there's something so demoralizing about looking at a pile of not very great sentences. As I ease into writing every morning, I tweak a sentence and then tweak a paragraph.
-
I remember feeling all right with myself until age 13. Then, I was getting off the bus one day and this guy called me Miss Piggy. That was the first time I ever really felt like I wasn't okay.
-
'How old are you Hogo.' 'Thirty-five Jane. A not unpleasant age to be.' 'You don’t mind then. That you are not young.' 'It has its buggy aspects as what does not?' 'You don’t mind then that you are sagging in the direction of death.' 'No, Jane.'
