Words matter. These are the best David Foster Wallace Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
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.
This might be one way to start talking about differences between the early postmodern writers of the fifties and sixties and their contemporary descendants.
For these cultures, getting rid of the pain without addressing the deeper cause would be like shutting off a fire alarm while the fire’s still going.
This is nourishing, redemptive; we become less alone inside.
It seems important to find ways of reminding ourselves that most ‘familiarity’ is meditated and delusive.
Pleasure becomes a value, a teleological end in itself. It’s probably more Western than U.S. per se.
The interesting thing is why we’re so desperate for this anesthetic against loneliness.
The other half is to dramatize the fact that we still ‘are’ human beings, now. Or can be.
I think TV promulgates the idea that good art is just art which makes people like and depend on the vehicle that brings them the art.
The other half is to dramatize the fact that we still ‘are’ human beings, now. Or can be.
I just think that fiction that isn’t exploring what it means to be human today isn’t art.
This is so American, man: either make something your God and cosmos and then worship it, or else kill it.
It looks like you can write a minimalist piece without much bleeding. And you can. But not a good one.
Fiction’s about what it is to be a human being.
One of the things that makes Wittgenstein a real artist to me is that he realized that no conclusion could be more horrible than solipsism.
This diagnosis can be done in about two lines. It doesn’t engage anybody.
We’re not keen on the idea of the story sharing its valence with the reader. But the reader’s own life ‘outside’ the story changes the story.
One of the things that makes Wittgenstein a real artist to me is that he realized that no conclusion could be more horrible than solipsism.
Pleasure becomes a value, a teleological end in itself. It’s probably more Western than U.S. per se.
I often think I can see it in myself and in other young writers, this desperate desire to please coupled with a kind of hostility to the reader.
The reader becomes God, for all textual purposes. I see your eyes glazing over, so I’ll hush.
To be willing to sort of die in order to move the reader, somehow. Even now I’m scared about how sappy this’ll look in print, saying this.
Fiction’s about what it is to be a human being.
The reader becomes God, for all textual purposes. I see your eyes glazing over, so I’ll hush.
Nuclear weapons and TV have simply intensified the consequences of our tendencies, upped the stakes.
The problem is that once the rules of art are debunked, and once the unpleasant realities the irony diagnoses are revealed and diagnosed, ‘then’ what do we do?
For these cultures, getting rid of the pain without addressing the deeper cause would be like shutting off a fire alarm while the fire’s still going.
I think TV promulgates the idea that good art is just art which makes people like and depend on the vehicle that brings them the art.
Rap’s conscious response to the poverty and oppression of U.S. blacks is like some hideous parody of sixties black pride.
This is nourishing, redemptive; we become less alone inside.
The interesting thing is why we’re so desperate for this anesthetic against loneliness.
This diagnosis can be done in about two lines. It doesn’t engage anybody.
It seems important to find ways of reminding ourselves that most ‘familiarity’ is meditated and delusive.
It can become an exercise in trying to get the reader to like and admire you instead of an exercise in creative art.
TV’s ‘real’ agenda is to be ‘liked,’ because if you like what you’re seeing, you’ll stay tuned. TV is completely unabashed about this; it’s its sole raison.
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.
Nuclear weapons and TV have simply intensified the consequences of our tendencies, upped the stakes.
The problem is that once the rules of art are debunked, and once the unpleasant realities the irony diagnoses are revealed and diagnosed, ‘then’ what do we do?
It looks like you can write a minimalist piece without much bleeding. And you can. But not a good one.
To be willing to sort of die in order to move the reader, somehow. Even now I’m scared about how sappy this’ll look in print, saying this.
