But the lie had to be a good one, because if your lie is badly done it makes everyone feel wretched, liar and lied-to alike plunged into the deepest lackadaisy, and everyone just feels like...

See the moon? It hates us.

I believe that because I had obtained a wife who was made up of wife-signs (beauty, charm, softness, perfume, cookery) I had found love.

The death of God left the angels in a strange position.

All men that are ruined are ruined on the side of their natural propensities,” the note concludes.This is surely true. Yet the vivacity with which he embraces ruin is unexampled, in my experience.

-Why are we fighting them?–They’re mad. We’re sane.–How do we know?–That we’re sane?–Yes.–Am I sane?–To all appearances.–And you, do you consider yourself sane?–I do.–Well, there you have it.–But don’t they also consider themselves sane?–I think...

This muck heaves and palpitates. It is multi-directional and has a mayor.

He gives her his Art History lecture.‘Then you get Mo-net and Ma-net, that’s a little tricky, Mo-net was the one did all the water lilies and shit, his colors were blues and greens, Ma-net was...

There is no moment that exceeds in beauty that moment when one looks at a woman and finds that she is looking at you in the same way that you are looking at her. The...

Fragments are the only forms I trust.

He is mad about being small when you were big, but no, that’s not it, he is mad about being helpless when you were powerful, but no, not that either, he is mad about being...

Now, here is the point about the self: it is insatiable. It is always, always hankering. It is what you might call rapacious to a fault. The great flaming mouth to the thing is never...

the hinder portion scalding-house good eating Curve B in addition to the usual baths and ablutions military police sumptuousness of the washhouse risking misstatements kept distances iris to iris queen of holes damp, hairy legs...

There was a certain amount of initial argumentation about the “meaning” of the balloon; this subsided, because we have learned not to insist on meanings, and they are rarely even looked for now, except in...

The Temptations of St. Anthony,” by Donald Barthelme

The aim of literature … is the creation of a strange object covered with fur which breaks your heart.

I wanted to say a certain thing to a certain man, a certain true thing that had crept into my head. I opened my head, at the place provided, and proceeded to pronounce the true...