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Quote by David Foster Wallace

“He made a gesture I can't describe: 'Gentlemen, welcome to the world of reality--there is no audience. No one to applaud, to admire. No one to see you. Do you understand? Here is the truth --actual heroism receives no queues up to see it. No one is interested.' He paused again and smiled in a way that was not one bit self-mocking. True heroism is you, alone, in a designated work space. True heroism is minutes, hours, weeks, year upon year of the quiet, precise, judicious exercise of probity and care--with no one there to see or cheer. This is the world. Just you and the job, at your desk. You and the return, you and the cash-flow data, you and the inventory protocol, you and the depreciation schedules, you and the numbers.' His tone was wholly matter-of-fact.”

Quote by David Foster Wallace

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Something to Do with Paying Attention

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David Foster Wallace
David Foster Wallace

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

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“The problem is going to be, "Let's see, I spent all day staring at a computer screen and then at night my most meaningful relationships are with the two-dimensional characters who aren't in fact two-dimensional characters . . . Gee, I wonder why I'm lonely and doing a lot of drugs? Could there be any connection between the fact that I've got nothing to do with other people, that I don't really have a fucking clue what it is to have a real life, and the fact that most of my existence is mediated by entertainment that I passively choose to receive?”

“Nel momento in cui riconosceva quello che c'era su una cartuccia provava la sensazione carica d'ansia che ci fosse qualcosa di meglio su un'altra cartuccia e che potenzialmente se lo stava perdendo. Poi si rese conto che avrebbe avuto tutto il tempo di godersi ogni cartuccia e capì intellettualmente che non aveva senso provare il panico di perdersi qualcosa.”

“Não é significativo que, em inglês, as palavras lobster (lagosta), fish (peixe) e chicken (frango) se refiram tanto ao animal quanto à carne, enquanto a maior parte dos mamíferos exige eufemismos como beef (carne de boi) e pork (carne de porco) para nos ajudar a separar a carne que comemos da criatura viva a quem um dia ela pertenceu? Seria isso uma prova de que existe um desconforto profundo a respeito de comer animais superiores, endêmico o bastante para vir à tona no idioma, mas que diminui à medida que nos afastamos da ordem dos mamíferos? (E seria lamb/lamb (cordeiro/cordeiro) o contraexemplo que empana toda essa teoria, ou existiriam motivos especiais, bíblico-históricos, para tal equivalência?)”

“I bought a house, it's small and brick and next to a horse pasture. It has what seems like a 6-acre lawn, and I bought the house in the winter and it didn't occur to me that the grass in this lawn grows and will have somehow to be dealt with. I haven't mowed a lawn since I folded my childhood lawn-mowing business at 13, and I see all my neighbors mowing their own 6-acre lawns like every fourth day, and Weed-Whacking, and dispersing seed and nitrates through devices that look like enormous flour-sifters on wheels, and I am not keen on becoming a lawn-obsessed homeowner. But it's nice to own a house and not pay off a landlord's mortgage.”

“That's what we've been taught, this is the underpinning of all European culture-this firm belief that there are no secrets that won't sooner or later come to light. Who was it that said it? Jesus? No, Pascal, I think it was… so naïve. But this faith has been nurtured for centuries; it has sprouted its own mythology: the cranes of Ibycus, manuscripts don't burn. An ontological faith in the fundamental knowability of every human deed. The certainty that, as they now teach journalism majors, you can find everything on the Internet. As if the Library of Alexandria never existed. Or the Pogruzhalsky arson, when the whole historical section of the Academy of Sciences' Public Library, more than six-hundred thousand volumes, including the Central Council archives from 1918, went up in flames. That was in the summer of 1964; Mom was pregnant with me already, and almost for an entire month afterward, as she made her way to work at the Lavra, she would get off the trolleybus when it got close to the university and take the subway the rest of the way: above ground, the stench from the site of the fire made her nauseous. Artem said there were early printed volumes and even chronicles in that section-our entire Middle Ages went up in smoke, almost all of the pre-Muscovite era. The arsonist was convicted after a widely publicized trial, and then was sent to work in Moldova's State Archives: the war went on. And we comforted ourselves with "manuscripts don't burn." Oh, but they do burn. And cannot be restored.”