Happy birthday, Donald Barthelme! Here are some quote from his writing.
“I am never needlessly obscure—I am needfully obscure, when I am obscure.”
“‘How can you be alienated without first having been connected?'”
“Originality is the last refuge of a hero…”
“All I want is just a trace of skeleton—three bones from which the rest may be reasoned out.”
“When people don’t write letters, language deteriorates.”
John Madera is the author of Nervosities (Anti-Oedipus Press, 2024). His other fiction is published in Conjunctions, Salt Hill, The &Now Awards 2: The Best Innovative Writing, and many other journals. His nonfiction is published in American Book Review, Bookforum, The Review of Contemporary Fiction, Rain Taxi: Review of Books, The Believer, The Brooklyn Rail, and many other venues. Recipient of an M.F.A. in Literary Arts from Brown University, New York State Council on the Arts awardee John Madera lives in New York City, Rhizomatic and manages and edits Big Other.