You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do.
David Foster WallaceRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes that storytelling ability alone does not define greatness in literature.
David Foster Wallace critiques the notion that the ability to tell an engaging story is sufficient for literary greatness. He argues that true greatness in literature involves complexity, depth, and insight that transcends mere entertainment value, distinguishing accomplished writers like Dostoevsky from more commercial authors who may not achieve the same artistic merit.
Themes
LiteratureStorytellingGreatnessArtistic MeritDepth
In practice
Example use cases
In a book club discussion, one might use this quote to express why some authors are revered beyond their entertaining plots.
More from David Foster Wallace
All quotes →Everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute center of the universe, the realest, most vivid and important person in existence.
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It seems important to find ways of reminding ourselves that most 'familiarity' is meditated and delusive.
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Under fun's new administration, writing fiction becomes a way to go deep inside yourself and illuminate precisely the stuff you don't want to see or let anyone else see, and this stuff usually turns out (paradoxically) to be precisely the stuff all writers and readers share and respond to, feel.
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Acceptance is usually more a matter of fatigue than anything else.
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Bliss - a-second-by-second joy and gratitude at the gift of being alive, conscious - lies on the other side of crushing, crushing boredom. Pay close attention to the most tedious thing you can find (Tax Returns, Televised Golf) and, in waves, a boredom like you’ve never known will wash over you and just about kill you. Ride these out, and it’s like stepping from black and white into color. Like water after days in the desert. Instant bliss in every atom.
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