904 Quotes by David Foster Wallace

Worship power-you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever ore power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart-you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out.

Of course, the fact that Dostoevsky can tell a juicy story isn't enough to make him great. If it were, Judith Krantz and John Grisham would be great fiction writers, and by any but the most commercial standards they're not even very good.

....basically the sort of guy who looks entirely at home in sockless white loafers and a mint-green knit shirt from Lacoste.

But of course there are all kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talked about in the great outside world of winning and achieving and displaying.

I don't think writers are any smarter than other people. I think they may be more compelling in their stupidity, or in their confusion.

I have heard upscale adult U.S. citizens ask the ship's Guest Relations Desk whether snorkeling necessitates getting wet...I now know the precise mixocological difference between a Slippery Nipple and a fuzzy navel.

Perhaps this is what it means to go mad: to be emptied and to be aware of the emptiness.

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

Here is how to handle being a feral prodigy.