You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do.
David Foster WallaceRead
The fun of reading as "an exchange between consciousnesses, a way for human beings to talk to each other about stuff we can't normally talk about."
Interpretation
What this quote means
Reading allows for deep and meaningful conversations about complex topics.
In this quote, David Foster Wallace highlights the unique ability of reading to facilitate a connection between individuals. It suggests that literature serves as a medium through which people can engage in discussions about intricate issues and feelings that are often difficult to express in everyday conversations, thus fostering greater understanding and empathy among readers.
Themes
ReadingCommunicationLiteratureUnderstandingConnection
In practice
Example use cases
In a book club meeting, you might quote this to emphasize the deeper discussions about human experiences that reading enables.
More from David Foster Wallace
All quotes βEverything 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 youβve never known will wash over you and just about kill you. Ride these out, and itβs like stepping from black and white into color. Like water after days in the desert. Instant bliss in every atom.
David Foster WallaceRead
Similar quotes
You know, you don't expect everyone to be as educated as everyone else or have the same achievements, but you expect at least to be offered at least some of the opportunities, and libraries are the most simple and the most open way to give people access to books.
Zadie SmithRead
. . . finally, I couldn't imagine how I could live without books, and I stopped dreaming about marrying that Chinese prince. . . .
Fyodor DostoevskyRead
If you care about being thought credible and intelligent, do not use complex language where simpler language will do.
Daniel KahnemanRead
Let those who will write the nation's laws, if I can write its textbooks.
Paul SamuelsonRead
Especially girls, but any kids exposed to music programs and arts programs do much better on their tests. They have a better chance of going to college. They can focus better. You know, we're not just automatons learning how to work machines and do engineering and math and science. All of that's great, but you've got to build a whole person.
Bonnie RaittRead
As a kid I would get my parents to drop me off at my local library on their way to work during the summer holidays and I would walk home at night. For several years I read the children's library until I finished the children's library. Then I moved into the adult library and slowly worked my way through them.
Neil GaimanRead