Quotes from Donald Barthelme

Immature citizens in several sizes were massed before a large factorylike structure where advanced techniques transformed them into true-thinking right-acting members of the three social classes, lower, middle, and upper middle.

The present goal of the individual in group enterprises is to avoid dominance; leadership is felt to be a character disorder.

A hundred canes shattered in the sun, like a load of antihistamines falling out of an airplane.

It is true that I am part of the laughing-aristocrat structure, Charles said. I don't mean I am one of them. I mean I am their creature. They hold me in thrall. Laughing aristocrats who invented the cost-plus contract . . . Laughing aristocrats who invented the real estate broker . . . Laughing aristocrats who invented Formica . . . Laughing aristocrats wiping their surfaces clean with a damp cloth . . . Charles poured himself another brilliant green Heineken. -To the struggle!

I noticed that he was an Irish setter, rust-colored. He noticed that I was a Welsh sculptor, buff-colored (no, really, what did he notice? how does he think?) I reflected that he was probably a nice dog from a good home (bourgeois dog) but with certain unfortunate habits like jumping on people from high windows (rationalization: he is a member of the television generation and thus -)

The best way to live is by not knowing what will happen to you at the end of the day, when the sun goes down and the supper is to be cooked. -from The Educational Experience

And eloquence, Henry Mackie says, is really all any of us can hope for.

97. I approached the symbol, with its layers of meaning, but when I touched it, it changed into only a beautiful princess. 98. I threw the beautiful princess headfirst down the mountain to my acquaintances. 99. Who could be relied upon to deal with her.

It's only when you stop to think about it. I don't stop. - From Morning

It is possible of course that there are no more real men here, on his ball of half-truths, the earth.

Love, which is a kind of permission to come closer than ordinary norms of good behavior might usually sanction. - Back rubs. - Which enables us to see each other without clothes on, for example, in lust and shame. - Examining perfections, imperfections. - Which allows us to say wounding things to each other which would not be kosher under the ordinary rules of civilized discourse.

Yes, success is everything. Failure is more common. Most achieve a sort of middling thing, but fortunately one's situation is always blurred, you never know absolutely quite where you are.

Food ... is the topmost taper on the golden candelabrum of existence.