"When I was hired they showed me my desk, an old beat-up scarred wooden desk, and they told me that it had been O. Henry’s desk when O. Henry worked for the paper, as he had at one time. And I readily believed it. I could see the place where O. Henry had savagely stabbed the desk with his pen in pursuit of a slimy adjective just out of reach, and a kind of bashed-in-looking place where O. Henry had beaten his poor genius head on the desk in frustration over not being able to capture the noun leaping like a fawn just out of reach... So I sat down at the desk and I too began to chase those devils, the dancy nouns and come-hither adjectives, what joy."
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Novelists from the United StatesEssayists from the United StatesShort story writers from the United StatesLiterary criticsEducators from the United States
Original Language: English
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“Return”, p. 55.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Donald_Barthelme
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Donald Barthelme
Donald Barthelme (April 7, 1931 – July 23, 1989) was an American author known for his postmodern short stories and novels.
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