Donald Barthelme - Interesting Quotes

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The new thing, a great banality in white, off-white and poor-white, leaned up against the wall. Interesting, we said. It's poor, Snow White said. Poor, poor. Yes, Paul said, one of my poorer things I think. Not so poor of course as yesterday's, poorer on the other hand than some, she said. Yes, Paul said, it has some of the qualities of poorness. Especially poor in the lower left-hand corner, she said. Yes, Paul said, I would go so far as to hurl it into the marketplace. They're getting poorer, she said. Poorer and poorer, Paul said with satisfaction, descending to unexplored depths of poorness where no human intelligence has ever been. … Sublimely poor, she murmured. Wallpaper, he said.

Donald Barthelme

I went out into the garage and told Bill an interesting story which wasn't true. Some people feel you should tell the truth, but those people are impious and wrong, and if you listen to what they say, you will be tragically unhappy all your life.

Donald Barthelme

Try to be a man about whom nothing is known, our father said, when we were young. Our father said several other interesting things, but we have forgotten what they were. Keep quiet, he said. That we remember. He wished more quiet. One tends to want that, in a National Park. Our father was a man about whom nothing was known. Nothing is known about him still. He gave us the recipes. He was not very interesting. A tree is more interesting. A suitcase is more interesting. A canned good is more interesting. When we sing the father hymn, we notice that he was not very interesting. The words of the hymn notice it. It is explictly commented upon, in the text.

Donald Barthelme