904 Quotes by David Foster Wallace

God, what a ghastly enterprise to be in, though--and what an odd way to achieve success. I'm an exhibitionist who wants to hide, but is unsuccessful at hiding; therefore, somehow I succeed.

There are very few innocent sentences in writing.

The job of the first eight pages is not to have the reader want to throw the book at the wall, during the first eight pages.

Words and a book and a belief that the world is words...

Psychotics, say what you want about them, tend to make the first move.

she committed suicide by putting her extremities down the garbage disposal-first one arm and then, kind of miraculously if you think about it, the other arm.

Am I a good person? Deep down, do I even really want to be a good person, or do I only want to seem like a good person so that people (including myself) will approve of me? Is there a difference? How do I ever actually know whether I'm bullshitting myself, morally speaking?

No one can call themselves a writer until he or she has written at least fifty stories.

Real leaders are people who “help us overcome the limitations of our own individual laziness and selfishness and weakness and fear and get us to do better, harder things than we can get ourselves to do on our own.