Donald Barthelme

The principle of collage is the central principle of all art in the 20th century.
-Donald Barthelme

Art is not difficult because it wishes to be difficult, rather because it wishes to be art.
-Donald Barthelme

Writing is a process of dealing with not-knowing, a forcing of what and how.
-Donald Barthelme

We have all heard novelists testify to the fact that beginning a new book, they are utterly baffled as to how to proceed, what should be written and how it might be written, even though they've done a dozen. At best there is a slender intuition, not much greater than an itch. The not-knowing is not simple, because it's hedged about with prohibitions, roads that may not be taken. The more serious the artist, the more problems he takes into account, the more considerations limit his possible initiatives.
-Donald Barthelme

Mr. Barthelme described New York City in the same terms as his own work, ''as a collage, as opposed to a tribal village in which all the huts are the same hut, duplicated. The point of collage is that things are stuck together to create a new reality.
-Donald Barthelme, NYT