You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do.
David Foster WallaceRead
Fiction becomes a weird way to countenance yourself and to tell the truth instead of being a way to escape yourself or present yourself in a way you figure you will be maximally likable.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Fiction serves as a means to explore one's true self and express honesty rather than merely a tool for self-presentation or evasion.
In this quote, David Foster Wallace suggests that fiction is not just a form of escapism, but rather a profound avenue for self-exploration and truth-telling. It emphasizes that through the act of creating or engaging with art, one can reflect on their own identity and convey deeper truths rather than just presenting a likable facade to the world.
Themes
FictionSelf-ExplorationTruthArtIdentity
In practice
Example use cases
In a writing workshop, a facilitator quotes Wallace to inspire participants to find personal truths in their stories.
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.
David Foster WallaceRead
It seems important to find ways of reminding ourselves that most 'familiarity' is meditated and delusive.
David Foster WallaceRead
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.
David Foster WallaceRead
Acceptance is usually more a matter of fatigue than anything else.
David Foster WallaceRead
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.
David Foster WallaceRead
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What the human eye observes casually and incuriously, the eye of the camera (the lens) notes with relentless fidelity.
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