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Quote by David Foster Wallace

“I had, by thirteen, developed a sort of Taoist hubris about my ability to control via non-control.”

Author

American novelist known for his unique literary style and profound insights into modern life. His works include 'Infinite Jest' and 'The Broom of the System'. more

“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.”

“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.”

Persons Facts Seems Religious Powerful Our Lives Argument Connections Response Significant Invisible Most Powerful Reverence Compelling Skeptical Empiricism

Author:David Foster Wallace

“I'm not going to deny it. I'm a neat person, there's no question. But I don't become obsessed with it.”

Persons Deny Obsessed Neat

Author:Courteney Cox

“Stated as an English sentence, of course, this is just a banal platitude - but the fact is that, in the day-to-day trenches of adult existence, banal platitudes can have life-or-death importance. That may sound like hyperbole, or abstract nonsense.”

May Persons Facts Courses Sound Existence Adults Importance Sentences Abstract Nonsense Day To Day Trenches Platitudes Life Or Death Hyperbole

Author:David Foster Wallace

“But if you've really learned how to think, how to pay attention, then you will know you have other options. It will be within your power to experience a crowded, loud, slow, consumer-hell-type situation as not only meaningful but sacred, on fire with the same force that lit the stars - compassion, love, the sub-surface unity of all things.”

Ifs Thinking Persons Force Stars Pay Attention Compassion Situation Hell Fire Type All Things Sacred Unity Surface Meaningful Consumers Pay Attention Loud Lit Crowded

Author:David Foster Wallace

“If you're automatically sure that you know what reality is and who and what is really important - if you want to operate on your default-setting - then you, like me, will not consider possibilities that aren't pointless and annoying.”

Ifs Knows Want Persons Important Reality Possibility Setting Like Me Settings Annoying Pointless Default

Author:David Foster Wallace

“This is not a matter of virtue-it's a matter of my choosing to do the work of somehow altering or getting free of my natural, hard-wired default-setting, which is to be deeply and literally self-centered, and to see and interpret everything through this lens of self.”

Persons Self Matter Hard Natural Virtue Setting Settings Lenses Self Centered Default

Book:This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life

Source: This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life

Quote by David Foster Wallace

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