Choosing is existence. To the extent that you don't choose, you don't exist. John Barth More Quotes by John Barth More Quotes From John Barth It's easier and sociabler to talk technique than it is to make art. John Barth easier technique art not every boy thrown to the wolves becomes a hero. John Barth thrown hero boys You don't reach Serendib by plotting a course for it. You have to set out in good faith for elsewhere and lose your bearings... serendipitously. John Barth good-faith serendipity elsewhere Somewhere in the world there was a young woman with such splendid understanding that she'd see him entire, like a poem or story, and find his words so valuable after all that when he confessed his apprehensions she would explain why they were in fact the very things that made him precious to her...and to Western Civilization! There was no such girl, the simple truth being. John Barth girl simple civilization I particularly scorn my fondness for paradox. I despise pessimism, narcissism, solipsism, truculence, word-play, and pusillanimity, my chiefer inclinations; loathe self-loathers ergo me; have no pity for self-pity and so am free of that sweet baseness. I doubt I am. Being me’s no joke. John Barth self play sweet Is man a savage at heart, skinned o'er with fragile Manners? Or is savagery but a faint taint in the natural man's gentility, which erupts now and again like pimples on an angel's arse? John Barth angel heart men If you would learn a thing, straightway declare yourself a professor of it! John Barth professors ifs All men are loyal, but their objects of allegiance are at best approximate. John Barth allegiance loyalty men History - an account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant John Barth knaves events history Printed prose is historically a most peculiar, almost an aberrant way of telling stories, and by far the most inherently anesthetic: It is the only medium of art I can think of which appeals directly to none of our five senses. The oral and folk tradition in narrative made use of verse or live-voice dynamics, embellished by gesture and expression--a kind of rudimentary theater--as do the best raconteurs of all times. Commonly there was musical accompaniment as well: a kind of one-man theater-of-mixed-means. John Barth men mean art He wishes he had never entered the funhouse. But he has. Then he wishes he were dead. But he's not. Therefore he will construct funhouses for others and be their secret operator -- though he would rather be among the lovers for whom funhouses are designed. John Barth lovers secret wish Yet everyone begins in the same place; how is it that most go along without difficulty but a few lose their way? John Barth difficulty loses way The Bible is not man's word about God, but God's word about man. John Barth god men It is often pleasant to stone a martyr, no matter how much we may admire him. John Barth matter stones may If you are a novelist of a certain type of termperament, then what you really want to do is re-invent the world. God wasn't too bad a novelist except he was a Realist. John Barth crafts novelists world Tis e'er the lot of the innocent in the world, to fly to the wolf for succor from the lion. John Barth innocence lions world Nobody knew how to be what they were right. John Barth One of the things I miss about teaching is that students would tell me what I ought to read. One of my students, back in the 1960s, put me onto Borges, and I remember another mentioning Flann O'Brien's At Swim Two-Birds in the same way. John Barth teaching bird two The horror of our history has purged me of opinions. John Barth horror opinion Tis e'er the wont of simple folk to prize the deed and o'erlook the motive, and of learned folk to discount the deed and lay open the soul of the doer. John Barth deeds soul simple
