You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do.
David Foster WallaceRead
There's a kind of Ah-ha! Somebody at least for a moment feels about something or sees something the way that I do. It doesn't happen all the time. It's these brief flashes or flames, but I get that sometimes. I feel unalone—intellectually, emotionally, spiritually. I feel human and unalone and that I'm in a deep, significant conversation with another consciousness in fiction and poetry in a way that I don't with other art.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects the profound connection and understanding one can feel through literature and art.
In this quote, David Foster Wallace expresses the sense of connection and validation that comes from encountering shared experiences in fiction and poetry. He describes moments when another person's perspective resonates deeply with his own, providing a sense of companionship and understanding that transcends ordinary life. This emotional and intellectual communion enriches his humanity and alleviates feelings of solitude in a way that other art forms may not accomplish.
Themes
ConnectionLiteratureEmpathyUnderstandingSolitude
In practice
Example use cases
In a book club discussion about a novel that evokes deep emotions.
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.
David Foster WallaceRead
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