Donald Barthelme (1931–1989)

The point of my career is perhaps how little I achieved. We speak of someone as having had "a long career" and that's usually taken to be admiring, but what if it's thirty-five years of persistence in error? I don't know what value to place on what I've done, perhaps none at all is right. If I'd done something with soybeans, been able to increase the yield of an acre of soybeans, then I'd know I'd done something. I can't say that.

"Tell me something," Arthur said. "Why have I lived so long!"
"God's grace, Merlin's magic, adroitness in battle, sturdy red and white corpuscles, a great heart—What can I say?"
"You don't think it's been a bit…protracted? My life?"
"It's run on a few centuries beyond the normal span, that's true. But there are exceptional individuals in all periods of history."

"How does one unweld a weld?" Arthur asked. "Chip at it with a crowbar?"
"We could have them take up the track," said Sir Lamorak, "fore and aft of the engine. Then that section could be slid to one side and new rails laid. But you'd have to have a mighty powerful something to move it with."
"They could lay track perpendicular to the existing track and bring in another engine on that track," said Sir Kay, "but it would take donkey's years."
"If Merlin were still in business he could mag-ick it away," said the king. " 'Avaunt!' he'd say, and the thing would be done. I'm afraid I never adequately appreciated Merlin." He paused. "Big bastard, isn't it."
Further inspection of the quite large locomotive.
"I say we blast," said Sir Helin.
"We could have the sappers tunnel beneath it," said Sir Lamorak, "and when the hole is big enough, cut the rails and the engine would fall into the pit. Then we fill in around it and lay new track. What think you?"
"If we could melt it somehow," replied Sir Kay. "Build a sort of furnace sort of thing around it—"
"Jack it up," said Arthur. "Remove the wheels and attached track. Replace wheels. Replace track. Lower engine, and there you have it."
"What a good idea," said Sir Lamorak. "Why didn't I think of that?"
"A perfect solution," Sir Kay said. "One understands, at moments like this, why you are king, sire. Your idea is fifty times better than any of our ideas."

Launcelot, Arthur, Sir Kay, the Blue Knight, and Sir Roger de Ibadan in conference.
"These three equations, taken together, will enable us to build a bomb more powerful than any the world has ever known," said Sir Roger. "When Launcelot showed me all three, I recognized instantly that they were either alchemical transmutations of the most important kind or the culmination of some Scandinavian work in atomic fission I've been following."
"Or both," said the Blue Knight.
"Or both," Sir Roger agreed. "Either way, it's the Grail you chaps have been seeking. The big boom."

"You understand," said Sir Roger, "that once you let go of this, the city is gone. Totally…everything within ten miles or so of the point of impact goes…"
"Isn't that a bit bloodthirsty?"
"That's the business we're in, at the moment."
Arthur took the three slips of paper and tore them to bits.
"We won't do it," he said. "I cannot allow it. It's not the way we wage war…The essence of our calling is right behavior, and this false Grail is not a knightly weapon. I have spoken."