A mystery novel localizes the awesome force of the real death outside the book, winds it tightly in a plot.

Don DeLillo

Categorized in : Book Wind Real

I think a playwright realizes after he finishes working on the script that this is only the beginning. What will happen when it moves into three dimensions?

three moving thinking

Never underestimate the power of the State to act out its own mas... by Don DeLillo

Never underestimate the power of the State to act out its own massive fantasies.

fantasy underestimate literature

All plots tend to move deathward. This is the nature of plots. by Don DeLillo

All plots tend to move deathward. This is the nature of plots.

plot moving

Murray said, ´I don´t trust anybody´s nostalgia but my own. Nostalgia is a product of dissatisfaction and rage. It´s a settling of grievances between the present and the past. The more powerful the nostalgia, the closer you come to violence. War is the form nostalgia takes when men are hard-pressed to say something good about their country.´

powerful war country

I am ashamed every day, and more ashamed the next. But I will spend the rest of my life in this living space writing these notes, this journal, recording my acts and reflections, finding some honor, some worth at the bottom of things. I want ten thousand pages that will stop the world.

space reflection writing

People think about who they are in the stillest hour of the night. I carry this thought, the child's mystery and terror of this thought, I feel this immensity in my soul every second of my life.

night children thinking

Even when you self-destruct, you want to fail more, lose more, die more than others, stink more than others.

failing self want

Stories have no point if they don't absorb our terror. by Don DeLillo

Stories have no point if they don't absorb our terror.

no-point terror stories

The less there was to see, the harder he looked, the more he saw.... by Don DeLillo

The less there was to see, the harder he looked, the more he saw. (Point Omega)

harder saws

Sometimes a thing that's hard is hard because you're doing it wro... by Don DeLillo

Sometimes a thing that's hard is hard because you're doing it wrong. (Point Omega)

hard sometimes

She became confused when she stepped onto an escalator that wasn'... by Don DeLillo

She became confused when she stepped onto an escalator that wasn't working.

escalators confused

History was not a matter of missing minutes on the tape. I did not stand helpless before it. I hewed to the texture of collected knowledge, took faith from the solid and availing stuff of our experience. Even if we believe that history is a workwheel powered by human blood -- read the speeches of Mussolini -- at least we've known the thing together. A single narrative sweep, not ten thousand wisps of disinformation. (82)

missing believe blood

Doesn't seem quite real. It's not meaningful. I can't quite imagine myself being 73. That's the age my father was! [Laughter.] How can I be his age? It's weird.

laughter meaningful father

When I work, I'm just translating the world around me in what seems to be straightforward terms. For my readers, this is sometimes a vision that's not familiar. But I'm not trying to manipulate reality. This is just what I see and hear.

vision trying reality

It is all falling indelibly into the past. by Don DeLillo

It is all falling indelibly into the past.

past fall

I long for the days of disorder. I want them back, the days when I was alive on the earth, rippling in the quick of my skin, heedless and real. I was dumb-muscled and angry and real. This is what I long for, the breach of peace, the days of disarray when I walked real streets and did things slap-bang and felt angry and ready all the time, a danger to others and a distant mystery to myself.

dumb real long

People who are in power make their arrangements in secret, largely as a way of maintaining and furthering that power.

secret-love power people

He'd once told me that the art of getting ahead in New York was based on learning how to express dissatisfaction in an interesting way. The air was full of rage and complaint. People had no tolerance for your particular hardship unless you knew how to entertain them with it.

new-york air art

Be willing to die for your beliefs, or computer printouts of your... by Don DeLillo

Be willing to die for your beliefs, or computer printouts of your beliefs.

willing computer belief

Let's enjoy the aimless days while we still can. by Don DeLillo

Let's enjoy the aimless days while we still can.

enjoy stills