You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do.
David Foster WallaceRead
You can be shaped, or you can be broken. There is not much in between. Try to learn. Be coachable. Try to learn from everybody, especially those who fail. This is hard. ... How promising you are as a Student of the Game is a function of what you can pay attention to without running away.
Interpretation
What this quote means
We have a choice to learn from our experiences or be defeated by them. Embracing lessons from failure is essential for growth.
This quote emphasizes the importance of being adaptable and receptive to learning, particularly from failure. David Foster Wallace suggests that our growth as individuals is contingent upon our ability to face challenges and heed the lessons they offer. In the pursuit of knowledge and personal development, being coachable and attentive, especially in the presence of setbacks, defines our potential as learners and achievers.
Themes
LearningFailureGrowthCoachableStudentAttention
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about overcoming challenges.
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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