acceptance

addiction

America

atheism

attention

bird

book

boredom

citizen

commitment

cruise

dedication

depression

despair

entertainment

epiphany

failure

familiarity

fan (spectator)

fear

fiction

fiction writing

Franz Kafka

Fyodor Dostoevsky

happenstance

heroism

humor

irony

kindness

language

letting go

literature

logical validity

loneliness

love story

madness

mediocrity

metafiction

monster

morning

movie

object

pain

perfectionism

political correctness

quitting smoking

reality

secret

silence

smoking

sports

suicide

television

tennis

tourism

truth

unfairness

voting

weakeness

worship

writer

writing

nationality

American

occupation / innovator as

novelist

short story writer

cause of death

intellectual movement

Postmodernism

essayist

university teacher

is usually more a matter of fatigue than anything else.

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

, if paid closely, and directly, renders almost anything interesting.

Almost anything that you pay close, direct attention to becomes interesting.

is the smell of suntan lotion spread over 21,000 tons of hot flesh.

I have smelled what suntan lotion smells like spread over 21,000 tons of hot flesh.

is a week of being the object of over 1,500 professional smiles.

I have in one week been the object of over 1,500 professional smiles.

is being in terrible and unceasing pain whereby a component and a contributing factor of the horror is the impossibility of sharing or articulating this pain.

The depressed person was in terrible and unceasing pain, and the impossibility of sharing or articulating this pain was itself a component of the pain and a contributing factor in its essential horror.

is a weird way to countenance yourself and to tell the truth instead of being a way to escape yourself or present yourself in a way you figure you will be maximally likable.

Fiction becomes a weird way to countenance yourself and to tell the truth instead of beign a way to escape yourself or present yourself in a way you figure you will be maximally likable.

is concerned with what it is to be a human being.

Fiction is about what it is to be a human being.

is one of the few experiences where loneliness can be both confronted and relieved.

Fiction is one of the few experiences where loneliness can be both confronted and relieved. Drugs, movies where stuff blows up, loud parties -all these chase away loneliness by making me forget my name's Dave and I live in a one-by-one box of bone no other party can penetrate or know. Fiction, poetry, music, really deep serious sex, and, in various ways, religion -these are the places (for me) where loneliness is countenanced, stared down, transfigured, treated.

is taught to us as something you must 'get' in order for it to be effective.

And it is this, I think, that makes Kafka's wit inaccessible to children whom our culture has trained to see jokes as entertainment and entertainment as reassurance) It's not that students don't 'get' Kafka's humor but that we've taught them to see humor as something you get-the same way we've taught them that a self is something you just have. No wonder they cannot appreciate the really central Kaf ka joke-that the horrific struggle to establish a human self results in a self whose humanity is inseparable from that horrific struggle. That our endless and impossible journey toward home is in fact our home. It's hard to put into words up at the blackboard, believe me. You can tell them that maybe it's good they don't 'get' Kafka. You can ask them to imagine his art as a kind of door. To envision us readers coming up and pounding on this door, pounding and pounding, not just wanting admission (DF Wallace 1998 : 2)

 splits things apart, gets up above them such that we can see the flaws and hypocrisies and duplicates.

The great thing about irony is that it splits things apart, gets up above them so we can see the flaws and hypocrisies and duplicates. David Foster Wallace

is being emptied and to be aware of the emptiness.

Perhaps this is what it means to go mad: to be emptied and to be aware of the emptiness.

is, for the adult, a real monster, the type of liar where there simply is no way to tell. The ones who give nothing away.

Boo, I think I no longer believe in monsters as faces in the floor or feral infants or vampires or whatever. I think at seventeen now I believe the only real monsters might be the type of liar where there simply is no way to tell. The ones who give nothing away.

is made for an audience and a film is made for both the audience and the film-makers.

A movie is made for an audience and a film is made for both the audience and the film-makers. David Fincher

is an Orwellian substitution of the euphemisms of social equality for social equality itself.

There's a grosser irony about Politically Correct English. This is that PCE purports to be the dialect of progressive reform but is in fact - in its Orwellian substitution of the euphemisms of social equality for social equality itself - of vastly more help to conservatives and the US status quo than traditional SNOOT prescriptions ever were. David Foster Wallace

 can be in the sound of the wind which, once it goes away, leaves one with the squeak of the blood in ones head and the aural glitter of all those little eardrum hairs quivering like a drunk in withdrawal.

The sound of wind had become, for me, silence. When it went away, I was left with the squeak of the blood in my head and the aural glitter of all those little eardrum haIrs quivering LIKE a drunk in withdrawal.

's easy to stop, it's just hard not to commit a felony after you stop.

is not vulgar and dumb because the people who compose Audience are vulgar and dumb. Television is the way it is simply because people tend to be extremely similar in their vulgar and prurient and dumb interests and wildly different in their refined and aesthetic and noble interests.

And I'm not saying that television is vulgar and dumb because the people who compose Audience are vulgar and dumb. Television is the way it is simply because people tend to be extremely similar in their vulgar and prurient and dumb interests and wildly different in their refined and aesthetic and noble interests.

is a sport requiring body control, hand-eye coordination, quickness, flat-out speed, endurance, and that weird mix of caution and abandon we call courage.

is such that, in reality, there is no such thing as not voting: You either vote by voting, or you vote by staying home and tacitly doubling the value of some diehard's vote.

In reality, there is no such thing as not voting: you either vote by voting, or you vote by staying home and tacitly doubling the value of some Diehard's vote. David Foster Wallace

David Foster WallaceThinkers

David Foster Wallace