It now lately sometimes seemed a black miracle to me that people could actually care deeply about a subject or pursuit, and could go on caring this way for years on end. Could dedicate their entire lives to it. It seemed admirable and at the same time pathetic. We are all dying to give our lives away to something, maybe.
David Foster Wallace
Related When I was working my way up, it seemed to me that only Westerns and 'Star Treks' or sci-fi ... ED ASNER Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it SARA SHEPARD We are all dying to give our lives away to something, maybe. God or Satan, politics or grammar, topo... DAVID FOSTER WALLACE Malaria actually could be fixed. We don't need a miracle drug. We don't need a miracle vaccine. We h... NICK WHITE I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several mo... HENRY DAVID THOREAU And now I'm glad I didn't know The way it all would end the way it all would go Our lives are better... GARTH BROOKS Using assistive technology with your child prevents your child from missing out on content solely be... SANDRA K. COOK And now I'm glad I didn't know The way it all would end the way it all would go Our lives ... GARTH BROOKS Treasures are hidden and hard to find but if we could find a real treasure, it will shine our lives.... MUDITHA CHAMPIKA The reality is that dying isn’t bad, but it takes forever. And that forever is no time at all. I k... DAVID FOSTER WALLACE It seemed there was no end at all to the lies a person could tell, once she got started. KIM EDWARDS Their friendship was only one aspect of their lives but it seemed to give meaning to all the others. ANN BRASHARES Lena realized that a fundamental layer of their happiness depended on the four of them being close t... ANN BRASHARES We wanted to make sure the businesses and people who also have made significant investments on Dicks... BRANDON BARBER It could potentially be something big but come what may, we have closure on a very sad chapter of ou... ADAM BALDWIN Lena wished that love were something you could flip on and off. You could turn it on when you felt g... ANN BRASHARES It seemed like he could turn it on anytime he wanted to. LARRY HARRISON God knew our lives would be really bad sometimes. Like maybe we'd be turned into a monster and then ... MICHAEL GRANT My dad noticed we could swim without lessons. It seemed to be something I had a talent for. CARRIE CHYKALIUK It seemed uncanny that words, spread across a page just so, had the power to transport me to another... NIKKI GRIMES I let him run on, this papier-maché Mephistopheles, and it seemed to me that if I tried I could pok... JOSEPH CONRAD How simpler our lives would be if we could stay the same! We are here on the planet to learn, grow, ... PAMELA CUMMINS It was an idea, I thought, that could almost be written as a helping tool. People seemed to like the... FLORENCE SEIDELMAN 35. God is entitled to a portion of our income—not because He needs it but because we need to give... JAMES C. DOBSON It seemed like whoever ascended to the top of the heap would quickly give it away. Nobody could sett... MIKE WILTON What was the point of being scared? The only thing they could do to me was kill me and it seemed l... FANNIE LOU HAMER What was the point of being scared? The only thing they could do to me was kill me and it seemed lik... FANNIE LOU HAMER Sometimes things don't go your way and their guy made a tough shot at the end. This will certainly g... JOEL PARDALIS Adarlan could take their freedom, it could destroy their lives and beat and whip them, it could forc... SARAH J. MAAS It made you wonder: How much of our lives was just luck or good timing, and how much was actually ch... ADITI KHORANA Hold it down until you come up JOHNNIE DENT JR. It seemed to be inadmissible to give in on such a fundamental point. This would have meant that any ... ROBERT BOURASSA All I ever did to that apartment was hang fifty yards of yellow theatrical silk across the bedroom w... JOAN DIDION We can never make proper goodbyes. It was your last ride in a Checker cab and you had no warning. It... COLSON WHITEHEAD You must have traveled all night,” she heard herself say. “I had to come back early.” Sh... LISA KLEYPAS But...as bad as it was, I learned something about myself. That I could go through something like tha... NICHOLAS SPARKS Over four or five years, I did six albums with three people: John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen, and Pat... JIMMY IOVINE Sometimes when the Spirit of God was striving and calling so plainly, I would yield and say, 'Yes, L... MARIA WOODWORTH-ETTER A picture held us captive. And we could not get outside it, for it lay in our language and language ... LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN If we could get people doing this sort of thing when they're about to have chemo, we could raise a l... SANDI TARR To have the cognitive abilities to do research and development is vital to a forever expanding world... GARY F EVANS... This could signal a turning point in our community. We are seeing an unprecedented discussion about ... KEITH BOYKIN I wish I could explain what happened. Nothing seemed to be where I wanted it and it was after Hollid... RUSS ORTIZ Once upon a time you could wander around one country, then the next and then maybe you'd go to Engla... MARGARET ATWOOD It seemed like when we could get the ball inside, we could score or get a nice kick-out and shot. Bu... BROCK CARRIER It is not the first time that we are making security arrangements for the Republic Day celebrations.... BK GUPTA We may not know what each day has in store for us. We could be gone tomorrow. Any minute could truly... GRACE GEALEY How lucky I am to have known somebody and something that saying goodbye to is so damned awful. EVANS G. VALENS I give thanks for the fact that I can get this stick with a bit of steel nib on the end, dip it in s... MICHAEL LEUNIG For many of these people, this could represent the most time they've ever spent in their lives focus... HOWARD DVORKIN The dog next-door had settled down, and the neighbourhood seemed stunned by this event occurring in ... MARKUS ZUSAK Time determines the occurrence of possibilities and impossibilities, but God determines the time for... ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it. EDMUND BURKE How to get it, I annoy you??? You are not interested??? What's the idea??? DEYTH BANGER Documentaries deal with people who live real, everyday lives. But if these people trusted us and tol... KRZYSZTOF KIESLOWSKI The market is still waiting for HSBC results, which will have a big impact on the direction of the m... ANDREW TO Property shares had a technical rebound, but interest rate concerns will still affect properties unt... ANDREW TO Bank of China's results were quite good; double-digit growth can be taken as good results for a bank... ANDREW TO The index tried to challenge 18,000 but failed, so that triggered profit taking. Tokyo's slide also ... ANDREW TO Trading seems to be focusing on selective counters because investors are cautious amid interest rate... ANDREW TO We're seeing a minor technical rebound after Wall Street rebounded from two days of losses. The key ... ANDREW TO Some investors have returned to pick up the stock at bargain prices. ANDREW TO I think the take-up for the placement is not too good and other property developers may be discourag... ANDREW TO We are afraid that our freedoms and liberties will be infringed in the future. ANDREW TO I think there was some minor selling pressure on telecom stocks as the market continued to see a wea... ANDREW TO A Ritual to Read to Each Other If you don’t know the kind of person I am and... WILLIAM STAFFORD We're all, whether we like it or not, gonna have to deal with bereavement at some point in our l... DAVID OYELOWO It is unbelievably frustrating. It seems like we have all the makings of a good team, but we have no... JASON DONALD Although I cannot see your face As you flip these poems awhile, Somewhere from some far-of... SHEL SILVERSTEIN It was a splendid summer morning and it seemed as if nothing could go wrong. JOHN CHEEVER We're all concerned about it, and we're all sensitive to it, ... We do what we can to protect people... TED OLSON We tried not to look at each other for a minute, smiling each time we did. Except for the tiny scars... CHRIS FUHRMAN They suffered from the terrible delusion that something could be done. They seemed prepared to make ... TERRY PRATCHETT It seemed impossible that men with hearts and brains were capable of it. Such devastation of cities,... ELIZABETH BERG From the way that people have always talked about your heart being broken, it sort of seemed to be a... HEATHER O'NEILL Sometimes we look for those thunderous things to happen in our life for our lives to change or go in... BEN VEREEN I was on 'Melrose' at a time where we had to all go home and be there at the same time when ... LAURA LEIGHTON I used to think--and given the way we ended up, maybe I still do--that all relationships need the ki... NICK HORNBY You were supposed to have hope, right? You were supposed to respect its power and hold on. And so I ... DEB CALETTI It could help the country, it could help the farmers, it could help the taxi drivers and so on. We h... GILLES DUCEPPE 37. It is better to be single and unhappy than unhappily married. JAMES C. DOBSON This is something that could be very valuable if it works, no doubt about it. But don't tell me we s... IRVING WEISSMAN It's important that we attempt to extend life beyond Earth now. It is the first time in the four... ELON MUSK Our lives were a series of extremes. A thanksgiving of riches was bestowed on us at birth: grace and... BROOKE HAYWARD We are legislators, not public works contractors. People look up to us to make serious laws that cou... MIRIAM DEFENSOR-SANTIAGO It is important that we celebrate them coming home and appreciate this as our freedom. They are will... BOB LIEBER I'll never be like this again . . . I'll never again feel as tall as the sky and as old as the hills... TERRY PRATCHETT With the Black Lives Matter movement, a lot of the focus is on the protest and dissent. I'm hopi... AVA DUVERNAY To be honest, when I was writing these stories a million years ago, I never thought about movies at ... STAN LEE In that I found being able to talk to my family about my feelings, praying for strength and realizin... MARLO THOMAS The problem is that too many adults think their kids' lives are simple, or they try to make thei... SHERMAN ALEXIE I had a feeling she probably made friends with people pretty easily, and that could be a good thing ... JESSI KIRBY She wished she could help David to seem more legitimate. She wished she could do something to keep e... ZELDA FITZGERALD Everyone pitched in for us. To pull out a match on the road, a match that could easily have gone eit... BEN BUCCA Sometimes we look for those thunderous things to happen in our life for our lives to change or go in... BEN VEREEN This isn't about saving money, this is about saving lives. Just focusing on foster care is too late.... MARIANNE UDOW I think some of the previous owners had talked about developing, but they never amounted to anything... GERRY SMITH I'm not a trained chef. I'm a self-taught cook, and I want people to be like, 'Yo, I cou... HAYLIE DUFF Eventually I came across another passage. This is what it said: I am not commanding you, but I ... NICHOLAS SPARKS To kill a mockingbird. If you haven't read it, I think you should because it is very interesting. STEPHEN CHBOSKY
More David Foster Wallace
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DAVID FOSTER WALLACE If you can think of times in your life that you've treated people with extraordinary decency and lov... DAVID FOSTER WALLACE Eyes the broad-shouldered faceless character that symbolizes Men’s Room, does Sternberg, and strug... DAVID FOSTER WALLACE When something large and oncoming passed, the windshield's big rectangle was for a moment incandesce... DAVID FOSTER WALLACE I am fortunately an entirely handsome devil and appear even younger than twenty-nine. I look like a ... DAVID FOSTER WALLACE But and so things are slow, and like you they have this irritating suspicion that any real satisfact... DAVID FOSTER WALLACE Sometimes, when I don't think about it, I think I have just totally escaped the Bad Thing, and that ... DAVID FOSTER WALLACE If I’m hanging out with you, I can’t even tell whether I like you or not because I’m too worri... DAVID FOSTER WALLACE I'm not saying that television is vulgar and dumb because the people who compose the Audience are vu... DAVID FOSTER WALLACE JAY: No really. Be secure. Pretend I'm a sperm cell. Here. I take the string out of the... hood of m... DAVID FOSTER WALLACE The reasons that center on others are easy to manipulate. All hollow things are light. DAVID FOSTER WALLACE It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms nearly always shoo... DAVID FOSTER WALLACE Te occidere possunt sed te edere possunt nefas est. DAVID FOSTER WALLACE Il suicidio è così contrario a tanti nostri istinti e impulsi programmati che nessuno sano di ment... DAVID FOSTER WALLACE Blue Springs Memorial Hospital Palliative Care Unit, Independence, Mo. DAVID FOSTER WALLACE The truth is you've already heard this. That this is what it's like. That it's what makes room for t... DAVID FOSTER WALLACE It is a fact of life that certain people are corrosive to others’ self esteem simply as a function... DAVID FOSTER WALLACE She smelled of talcum powder and Big Red. DAVID FOSTER WALLACE It's not that words or human language stop having any meaning or relevance after you die, by the way... DAVID FOSTER WALLACE ...this was depressing, much the way discovering that somebody is easy to manipulate is always a lit... DAVID FOSTER WALLACE The fraud part of me was always there, just as a puzzle piece, objectively speaking, is a true piece... DAVID FOSTER WALLACE I don't think he was used to patients who were already aware of what their real problem was. He was ... DAVID FOSTER WALLACE The almost-35-year-old Terry Schmidt had very nearly nothing left anymore of the delusion that he di... DAVID FOSTER WALLACE -when he thinks of the starry-eyed puerility and narcissism of these fantasies now, a rough decade l... DAVID FOSTER WALLACE *One clue that there’s something not quite real about sequential time the way you experience it i... DAVID FOSTER WALLACE Atwater knew — as did everyone at Style, though by some strange unspoken consensus it was never sa... DAVID FOSTER WALLACE The reality is that dying isn’t bad, but it takes forever. And that forever is no time at all. I k... DAVID FOSTER WALLACE (..)-Dr. G. would later say that the whole "my whole life flashed before me" phenomenon at the end i... DAVID FOSTER WALLACE Even as I wrote my note to Fern, for instance, expressing sentiments and regrets that were real, a p... DAVID FOSTER WALLACE If I understand you right,' he says, 'you're saying that you're basically a calculating manipulative... DAVID FOSTER WALLACE It is a fact of life that certain people are corrosive to others' self esteem simply as a function o... DAVID FOSTER WALLACE What teachers and the administration in that era never seemed to see was that the mental work of wha... DAVID FOSTER WALLACE The truth is you already know what it's like. You already know the difference between the size and s... DAVID FOSTER WALLACE Hell hath no fury like a coolly received postmodernist. DAVID FOSTER WALLACE You know, the whole thing about perfectionism. The perfectionism is very dangerous. Because of cours... DAVID FOSTER WALLACE When he smoked marijuana he tended to masterbate a great deal. DAVID FOSTER WALLACE I like the fans’ sound at night. Do you? It’s like somebody big far away goes like: it’sOKit�... DAVID FOSTER WALLACE How odd I can have all this inside me and to you it’s just words. DAVID FOSTER WALLACE Here is how to turn down an extramural date so you won't be asked again. Say something like I'm terr... DAVID FOSTER WALLACE the patriotic or religious bumper stickers always seem to be on the biggest, most disgustingly selfi... DAVID FOSTER WALLACE This, of course, is because today’s postfeminist era is also today’s postmodern era, in which su... DAVID FOSTER WALLACE You don’t have to think very hard to realize that our dread of both relationships and loneliness �... DAVID FOSTER WALLACE We're kind of wishing some parents would come back. And of course we're uneasy about the fac... DAVID FOSTER WALLACE Pleasure becomes a value, a teleological end in itself. It's probably more Western than U.S. per... DAVID FOSTER WALLACE The other half is to dramatize the fact that we still 'are' human beings, now. Or can be. DAVID FOSTER WALLACE