“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, quote from Lost in the Funhouse
“The reader! You, dogged, uninsultable, print-oriented bastard, it's you I'm addressing, who else, from inside this monstrous fiction. You've read me this far, then? Even this far? For what discreditable motive? How is it you don't go to a movie, watch TV, stare at a wall, play tennis with a friend, make amorous advances to the person who comes to your mind when I speak of amorous advances? Can nothing surfeit, saturate you, turn you off? Where's your shame?”
― John Barth, quote from Lost in the Funhouse
“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, quote from Lost in the Funhouse
“Nobody knew how to be what they were right. ”
― John Barth, quote from Lost in the Funhouse
“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, quote from Lost in the Funhouse
“Indeed, if I have yet to join the hosts of the suicides, it is because (fatigue apart) I find it no meaningfuller to drown myself than to go on swimming.”
― John Barth, quote from Lost in the Funhouse
“Unhappily, things get clearer as we go along. I perceive that I have no body. What's less, I've been speaking of myself without delight or alternative as self-consciousness pure and sour; I declare now that even that isn't true. I'm not aware of myself at all, as far as I know. I don't think. . . I know what I'm talking about.”
― John Barth, quote from Lost in the Funhouse
“Yet everyone begins in the same place; how is it that most go along without difficulty but a few lose their way?”
― John Barth, quote from Lost in the Funhouse
“There was some simple, radical difference about him. He hoped it was genius, feared it was madness, devoted himself to amiability and inconspicuousness.”
― John Barth, quote from Lost in the Funhouse
“Too late she saw: what she’d favored him with in jest he had received with adoration.”
― John Barth, quote from Lost in the Funhouse
“…beg Love’s pardon for your want of faith. Helen chose you without reason because she loves you without cause; embrace her without question and watch your weather change.”
― John Barth, quote from Lost in the Funhouse
“people still fall in love, and out, yes, in and out, and out and in, and they please each other, and hurt each other, isn't that the truth, and they do these things in more or less conventionally dramatic fashion, unfashionable or not, go on, I'm going, and what goes on between them is still not only the most interesting but the most important thing in the bloody murderous world”
― John Barth, quote from Lost in the Funhouse
“Let your repentance salt my shoe leather," I said presently, "and then, as I lately sheathed my blade of anger, so sheath you my blade of love.”
― John Barth, quote from Lost in the Funhouse
“But I reckon we can manage somehow. The important thing to remember, after all, is that it’s meant to be a funhouse; that is, a place of amusement. If people really got lost or injured or too badly frightened in it, the owner’d go out of business. There’d even be lawsuits. No character in a work of fiction can make a speech this long without interruption or acknowledgment from the other characters.”
― John Barth, quote from Lost in the Funhouse
“In sum I'm not what either parent or I had in mind. One hoped I'd be astonishing, forceful, triumphant—heroical in other words. One dead. I myself conventional. I turn out I.”
― John Barth, quote from Lost in the Funhouse
“Love it is that drives and sustains us!' I translate: we don't know what drives and sustains us, only that we are most miserably driven and, imperfectly, sustained. Love is how we call our ignorance of what whips us.”
― John Barth, quote from Lost in the Funhouse
“Others live for the lie of love; Echo lives for her lovely lies, loves for their livening.”
― John Barth, quote from Lost in the Funhouse
“The wisdom to recognize and halt follows the know-how to pollute past rescue. The treaty’s signed, but the cancer ticks in your bones. Until I’d murdered my father and fornicated my mother I wasn’t wise enough to see I was Oedipus.”
― John Barth, quote from Lost in the Funhouse
“One way or another, no matter which theory of our journey is correct, it's myself I address; to whom I rehearse as to a stranger our history and condition, and will disclose my secret hope though I sink for it.”
― John Barth, quote from Lost in the Funhouse
John Barth
Born place: in Cambridge, Maryland, The United States
Born date May 27, 1930
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“Of the first few hauntings I investigated with Lockwood & Co. I intend to say little, in part to protect the identity of the victims, in part because of the gruesome nature of the incidents, but mainly because, in a variety of ingenious ways, we succeeded in messing them all up.”
― Jonathan Stroud, quote from Die Seufzende Wendeltreppe
“¿Cómo no iban a apodersarse los deliriros de grandeza de un campesino del Banato si de pronto, a los veintiún años, con sólo mover unas figuritas sobre un tablero de madera, ganaba más en una semana que su pueblo entero en todo un año de talar bosques y realizar las tareas más duras?”
― Stefan Zweig, quote from Schachnovelle
“He stares at me as though I am a stranger, but I have never felt less like one. For the first time, we are both unmasked.”
― Holly Black, quote from The Cruel Prince
“For Yours
You were the one who taught her strength and humility in equal parts. You were the one who lifted her up, brought her down to her knees. And now here she is, the girl who has never had to ask for anyone's love, asking for yours.s”
― Lang Leav, quote from Sea of Strangers
“We are all a little bit broken, she tells me (the reason she doesn’t sleep at night?), but we all work on fixing ourselves.”
― Lisa Gardner, quote from Right Behind You
Tempting the Beast
An Object of Beauty
Between the Lines
Book of Shadows
Ironside
Cryer's CrossBookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
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