The next suitable person you’re in light conversation with, you stop suddenly in the middle of the conversation and look at the person closely and say, “What’s wrong?” You say it in a concerned way. He’ll say, “What do you mean?” You say, “Something’s wrong. I can tell. What is it?” And he’ll look stunned… Continue reading David Foster Wallace
My bones are ringing the way sometimes people say their ears are ringing, I’m so tired. — David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest. (Back Bay Books; 1st Paperback Ed edition February 1, 1997)
Look man, we’d probably most of us agree that these are dark times, and stupid ones, but do we need fiction that does nothing but dramatize how dark and stupid everything is? In dark times, the definition of good art would seem to be art that locates and applies CPR to those elements of what’s… Continue reading David Foster Wallace
The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way… Continue reading David Foster Wallace
How odd I can have all this inside me and to you it’s just words. ― David Foster Wallace, The Pale King. (Little, Brown and Company; First Edition edition April 15, 2011)
Attachments are of great seriousness. Choose your attachments carefully. Choose your temple of fanaticism with great care. What you wish to sing of as tragic love is an attachment not carefully chosen. Die for one person? This is a craziness. Persons change, leave, die, become ill. They leave, lie, go mad, have sickness, betray you,… Continue reading David Foster Wallace
What passes for hip cynical transcendence of sentiment is really some kind of fear of being really human, since to be really human […] is probably to be unavoidably sentimental and naïve and goo-prone and generally pathetic. ― David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest. (Back Bay Books; 1st Paperback Ed edition February 1, 1997)
When I say or write something, there are actually a whole lot of different things I am communicating. The propositional content (i.e., the verbal information I’m trying to convey) is only one part of it. Another part is stuff about me, the communicator. Everyone knows this. It’s a function of the fact there are so… Continue reading David Foster Wallace
It’s weird to feel like you miss someone you’re not even sure you know. — David Foster Wallace
Among pernicious myths is the one where people always get very upbeat and generous and other-directed right before they eliminate their own map for keeps. The truth is that the hours before a suicide are usually an interval of enormous conceit and self-involvement. ― David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest. (Back Bay Books; 1st Paperback Ed… Continue reading David Foster Wallace
The Vale of Soul-Making 