...there is a realm of possible knowledge which can be reached by artists, which is not susceptible of… — Donald Barthelme
...there is a realm of possible knowledge which can be reached by artists, which is not susceptible of mathematical verification but which is true. This is sometimes spoken as the ineffable. If there is any word I detest in the language, this would be it, but the fact that it exists, the word ineffable, is suspicious in that it suggests that there might be something that is ineffable. And I believe that that’s the place artists are trying to get to, and I further believe that when they are successful, they reach it...
p. 65Source: Wikiquote · CC BY-SA 4.0
More from this book
When computers learn how to make jokes, artists will be in serious trouble.
p. 22
There’s always the tension between losing an audience and doing the odd things you might want to try. The effort is always to make what you write nourishing or useful to readers. You do cut out some readers by idiosyncrasies of form. I regret this.
p. 271
One of the beautiful things about words is that you can put words together which in isolation mean nothing, or mean only what the dictionary says they mean, and you put them together and you get extraordinary effects.
p. 214
