Everything takes time. Bees have to move very fast to stay still. David Foster Wallace More Quotes by David Foster Wallace More Quotes From David Foster Wallace Kafka's evocations are, rather, unconscious and almost sub-archetypal, the little-kid stuff from which myths derive; this is why we tend to call even his weirdest stories nightmarish rather than surreal. David Foster Wallace stories littles kids It feels intensely twisted to see reigning industry queen Jenna Jameson chilling out at the Vivid booth in Jordaches and a latex bustier and to know already that she has a tattoo of a sundered valentine with the tagline Heart Breaker on her right buttock and a tiny hairless ole just left of her anus. David Foster Wallace valentine tattoo queens I knew my limitations and the limitations of the courts I played on, and adjusted thusly. I was at my best in bad conditions. David Foster Wallace conditions court persons There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says 'Morning, boys. How's the water?' And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes 'What the hell is water?' David Foster Wallace swimming morning boys But there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talked about in the great outside world of winning and achieving and displaying. David Foster Wallace kind winning world The capital-T Truth is about life before death. It is about making it to 30, or maybe 50, without wanting to shoot yourself in the head. David Foster Wallace before-death truth-is The desire for perfect release and the real-world impossibility of perfect, whenever-you-want-it release had together produced a tension they could no longer stand. David Foster Wallace real perfect desire The fact that the most powerful and significant connections in our lives are (at the time) invisible to us seems to me a compelling argument for religious reverence rather than skeptical empiricism as a response to life's meaning. David Foster Wallace connections powerful religious I'm not putting any of this well. I am not and never have been an intellectual. I am not articulate, and the subjects that I am trying to describe and discuss are beyond my abilities. I am trying, however, the best I can, and will go back over this as carefully as possible when I am finished, and will make changes and corrections whenever I can see a way to make what I'm discussing clearer or more interesting without fabricating anything. David Foster Wallace intellectual trying interesting There happen to be whole large parts of adult American life that nobody talks about in commencement speeches. One such part involves boredom, routine, and petty frustration. David Foster Wallace boredom frustration adults It was when I was the age where you can, as they say, "hear voices" without worrying that something is wrong with you. I "heard voices" all the time as a small child. David Foster Wallace voice worry children Why not? Why not?Why not not, then, if the best reasoning you can contrive is why not? David Foster Wallace infinite-jest reasoning why-not And make no mistake: irony tyrannizes us. The reason why our pervasive cultural irony is at once so powerful and so unsatisfying is that an ironist is impossible to pin down. All U.S. irony is based on an implicit "I don’t really mean what I’m saying." So what does irony as a cultural norm mean to say? That it’s impossible to mean what you say? That maybe it’s too bad it’s impossible, but wake up and smell the coffee already? Most likely, I think, today’s irony ends up saying: "How totally banal of you to ask what I really mean. David Foster Wallace coffee powerful mistake I was never the sort of child who believed in "monsters under the bed" or vampires, or who needed a night-light in his bedroom; on the contrary, my father...once laughingly told my mother that he thought I might suffer from a type of benign psychosis called "antiparanoia," in which I seemed to believe that I was the object of an intricate universal conspiracy to make me so happy I could hardly stand it. David Foster Wallace mother father children Everything gets horrible. Everything you see gets ugly. Lurid is the word. Doctor Garton said lurid, one time. That's the right word for it. And everything sounds harsh, spiny and harsh sounding, like every sound you hear all of a sudden has teeth. And smelling like I smell bad even after I just got out of the shower. It's like what's the point of washing if everything smells like I need another shower David Foster Wallace ugly smell doctors Not that that mystical stuff's necessarily true: The only thing that's capital-T true is that you get to decide how you're going to try to see it. David Foster Wallace mystical stuff trying Probably the most dangerous thing about college education, at least in my own case, is that it enables my tendency to over-intellectualize stuff, to get lost in abstract arguments inside my head instead of simply paying attention to what's going on right in front of me. TC mark David Foster Wallace college stuff attention Mario, what do you get when you cross an insomniac, an unwilling agnostic and a dyslexic? David Foster Wallace infinite-jest agnostic pain This is nourishing, redemptive we become less alone inside. David Foster Wallace redemption I love the way you love, but I hate the way I'm supposed to love you back. David Foster Wallace hate love-you way
