It's true that some of us become better writers by living long enough. But this is also how we become worse writers. The trick is to die in between. Don DeLillo More Quotes by Don DeLillo More Quotes From Don DeLillo As technology advances in complexity and scope, fear becomes more primitive. Don DeLillo primitive scope technology No sense of the irony of human experience, that we are the highest form of life on earth, and yet ineffably sad because we know what no other animal knows, that we must die. Don DeLillo irony earth animal I've come to think of Europe as a hardcover book, America as the paperback version. Don DeLillo europe book thinking You have to break through the structure of your own stonework habit just to make yourself listen. Don DeLillo break-through habit break What we are reluctant to touch often seems the very fabric of our salvation. Don DeLillo fabric salvation seems The true life is not reducible to words spoken or written, not by anyone, ever. The true life takes place when we're alone, thinking, feeling, lost in memory, dreamingly self-aware, the submicroscopic moments. Don DeLillo memories life thinking Pain is just another form of information. Don DeLillo information form pain A writer takes earnest measures to secure his solitude and then finds endless ways to squander it. Don DeLillo endless solitude way Why shouldn't the death of a person you love bring you into lurid ruin? You don't know how to love the one you love until they disappear abruptly. Then you understand how thinly distanced from their suffering, how sparing of self you often were, only rarely unguarded of heart, working your networks of give-and-take. Don DeLillo self heart giving And what's the point of waking up in the morning if you don't try to match the enormousness of the known forces in the world with something powerful in your own life? Don DeLillo powerful morning trying The world isn't going to be destroyed, but you don't feel safe anymore in your plane or train or office or auditorium. Don DeLillo office safe world Fear is unnatural. Lightning and thunder are unnatural. Pain, death, reality, these are all unnatural. We can't bear these things as they are. We know too much. So we resort to repression, compromise and disguise. This is how we survive the universe. This is the natural language of the species. Don DeLillo lightning pain reality Sometimes I see something so moving I know I’m not supposed to linger. See it and leave. If you stay too long, you wear out the wordless shock. Love it and trust it and leave. Don DeLillo sometimes long moving We seem to believe it is possible to ward off death by following rules of good grooming. Don DeLillo following-rules grooming believe Film is more than the twentieth-century art. It's another part of the twentieth-century mind. It's the world seen from inside. We've come to a certain point in the history of film. If a thing can be filmed, the film is implied in the thing itself. This is where we are. The twentieth century is on film. You have to ask yourself if there's anything about us more important than the fact that we're constantly on film, constantly watching ourselves. Don DeLillo important mind art Too much has been forgotten in the name of memory. Don DeLillo too-much names memories The true life is not reducible to words spoken or written, not by anyone, ever. Don DeLillo true-life written life-is Writing is a concentrated form of thinking...a young writer sees that with words he can place himself more clearly into the world. Words on a page, that's all it takes to help him separate himself from the forces around him, streets and people and pressures and feelings. He learns to think about these things, to ride his own sentences into new perceptions. Don DeLillo writing people thinking Writing is a form of personal freedom. It frees us from the mass identity we see in the making all around us. In the end, writers will write not to be outlaw heroes of some underculture but mainly to save themselves, to survive as individuals. Don DeLillo identity hero writing Writing is a concentrated form of thinking. Don DeLillo form writing thinking
