Donald Barthelme - True Quotes

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My wife wants a dog. She already has a baby. The baby's almost two. My wife says that the baby wants the dog.
My wife has been wanting a dog for a long time. I have had to be the one to tell her that she couldn't have one. But now the baby wants a dog, my wife says. This may be true. The baby is very close to my wife. They go around together all the time, clutching each other tightly. I ask the baby, who is a girl, Whose girl are you? Are you Daddy's girl? The baby says, Momma, and she doesn't just say it once, she says it repeatedly, Momma momma momma. I don't see why I should buy a hundred-dollar dog for that damn baby.

Donald Barthelme
True dragons are Danish and speak Danish, a tongue that the Danes themselves describe as less a language than a throat disease. To attract a dragon, one chains a naked maiden to a rock. The maiden must be chained to the rock in such a way that every part of her is visible to the dragon. Many famous paintings demonstrate the technique; Ingres's Angelica Saved by Ruggiero is an example. After the dragon has inspected your maiden to its heart's content, you issue one of the conventional formal challenges, in Danish—'Jeg udfordre dig til ridderlig camp' is the way one usually puts it—and then the fight begins.

Donald Barthelme
"Is that true," I asked, "that song?"
"It is a metaphor," said Mrs. Davis, "it has metaphorical truth."
"And the end of the mechanical age," I said, "is that a metaphor?"
"The end of the mechanical age," said Mrs. Davis, "is in my judgment an actuality straining to become a metaphor. One must wish it luck, I suppose. One must cheer it on. Intellectual rigor demands that we give these damned metaphors every chance, even if they are inimical to personal well-being and comfort. We have a duty to understand everything, whether we like it or not–a duty I would scant if I could." At that moment the water jumped into the boat and sank us.

Donald Barthelme
"It's true," Carl said, "with a kind of merde-y inner truth which shines forth as the objective correlative of what actually did happen, back home."

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
BILL: … We are what we have been told about ourselves. We are the sum of the messages we have received. The true messages. The false messages.

Donald Barthelme
It is not true that Kafka wanted Brod to burn his manuscripts after his death. Rather it is the case that Kafka was on fire to be published... rushed to the postbox day after day... ate with editors... intrigued for favorable notices... read the Writer's Digest... consorted with critics... autographed napkins... made himself available to librarians... spoke on the radio...

Donald Barthelme