Quotes by David Foster Wallace

David Foster Wallace

….basically the sort of guy who looks entirely at home in sockless white loafers and a mint-green knit shirt from Lacoste.

Guy

Home

White

…and suddenly it occurred to him that the birds, whose twitters and repeated songs sounded so pretty and affirming of nature and the coming day, might actually, in a code known only to other birds, be the birds each saying ‘Get away’ or ‘This branch is mine!’ or ‘This tree is mine! I’ll kill you! Kill, kill!’ Or any other manner of dark, brutal, or self-protective stuff—they might be listening to war cries. The thought came from nowhere and made his spirits dip for some reason.

Dark

Song

War

…morning is the soul’s night.

Morning

Night

Soul

…the most obvious, ubiquitous, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about.

Important

Obvious

Reality

…the sun would leave my sky if I couldn’t assume you’d simply come and tell me you were sad.

Assuming

Sky

Sun

[I]f the writer does his job right, what he basically does is remind the reader of how smart the reader is.

Doe

Jobs

Smart

a large percentage of bright young men and women locate the impetus behind their career choice in the belief that they are fundamentally different from the common run of man, unique and in certain crucial ways superior, more as it were central, meaningful – what else could explain the fact that they themselves have been at the exact center of all they’ve experienced for the whole 20 years of their conscious lives? – and that they can and will make a difference in their chosen field simply by the fact of their unique and central presence to it…

Meaningful

Running

Unique

A novelist has to know enough about a subject to fool the passenger next to him on an airplane.

Airplane

Novelists

Writing

Acceptance is usually more a matter of fatigue than anything else.

Acceptance

Fatigue

Matter

All I’m saying is that it’s shortsighted to blame TV. It’s simply another symptom. TV didn’t invent our aesthetic childishness here any more than the Manhattan Project invented aggression.

Blame

Manhattan

Tvs

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Ability

Acceptance

Addiction

Adults

Age

Agendas

Agnostic

Airplane

Alive

America

Anxiety

Anxiety Attacks

Archer

Arms

Arrogant

Art

Artist

Assuming

Assumption

Attachment

Attention

Balls

Basketball

Beach

Beautiful

Bees

Before Death

Being Alone

Being Free

Being Weird

Belief

Believe

Bipolar

Blame

Book

Boredom

Boring

Bottles

Bovine

Boys

Business

Care

Caring

Character

Childhood

Children

Choices

Circles

Citizens

Class

The Future Blueprint

Tool

The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

Tool

The Autobiography

Tool

The Behaviour Diary

Tool

The Dating Diary

Tool

The Relationship Therapist

Tool

Quotes by David Foster Wallace

David Foster Wallace

….basically the sort of guy who looks entirely at home in sockless white loafers and a mint-green knit shirt from Lacoste.

…morning is the soul’s night.

…the most obvious, ubiquitous, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about.

…the sun would leave my sky if I couldn’t assume you’d simply come and tell me you were sad.

[I]f the writer does his job right, what he basically does is remind the reader of how smart the reader is.

A novelist has to know enough about a subject to fool the passenger next to him on an airplane.

Acceptance is usually more a matter of fatigue than anything else.

All I’m saying is that it’s shortsighted to blame TV. It’s simply another symptom. TV didn’t invent our aesthetic childishness here any more than the Manhattan Project invented aggression.

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Topics by David Foster Wallace

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The Future Blueprint

The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

The Autobiography

The Behaviour Diary

The Dating Diary

The Relationship Therapist

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