John Barth Quotes

Everyone is necessarily the hero of his own life story.

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.

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.

All men are loyal, but their objects of allegiance are at best approximate.

The horror of our history has purged me of opinions.

Though life’s tuition is always ruinous, inexorably we learn.

If you would learn a thing, straightway declare yourself a professor of it!

In art as in lovemaking, heartfelt ineptitude has its appeal and so does heartless skill, but what you want is passionate virtuosity.

The story of your life is not your life; it’s your story.

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.

The Bible is not man’s word about God, but God’s word about man.

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