The writer is the person who stands outside society, independent of affiliation and independent of influence.
Don DelilloRead
Past, present and future are not amenities of language. Time unfolds into the seamsof being. It passes through you, making and shaping.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the nature of time and its impact on existence.
Don DeLillo's quote emphasizes that time is not merely a construct of language but a profound force that shapes our reality. It suggests that our experiences and identities are continuously molded by the flow of time, which connects our past, present, and future in a seamless tapestry of existence.
In practice
In a discussion about the philosophical implications of time, this quote can illustrate how our lives are influenced by the temporal flow.
The writer is the person who stands outside society, independent of affiliation and independent of influence.
War is the form nostalgia takes when men are hard-pressed to say something good about their country.
American writers ought to stand and live in the margins, and be more dangerous.
For me, writing is a concentrated form of thinking.
I used to think it was possible for an artist to alter the inner life of the culture. Now bomb-makers and gunmen have taken that territory.
[I]n the American soul there is a lonely individual standing in a vast landscape. He is either on a horse or driving a car, depending, and either way he’s carrying a gun. This is one of the essential images in American mythology.
Zero is powerful because it is infinity’s twin. They are equal and opposite, yin and_x000D_ yang. They are equally paradoxical and troubling. The biggest questions in science_x000D_ and religion are about nothingness and eternity, the void and the infinite, zero and_x000D_ infinity. The clashes over zero were the battles that shook the foundations of philosophy,_x000D_ of science, of mathematics, and of religion. Underneath every revolution lay a_x000D_ zero – and an infinity.
I went to live on a kibbutz, and I'd idealized the world of collective, agrarian work, where everyone was equal, everyone contributed, that all this awful European intellectual stuff just fell away.
It is impossible to live in the past, difficult to live in the present and a waste to live in the future.
One cannot reign innocently: the insanity of doing so is evident. Every king is a rebel and a usurper.
When the evening was over, Anne could not be amused…nor could she help fearing, on more serious reflection, that, like many other great moralists and preachers, she had been eloquent on a point in which her own conduct would ill bear examination.
In the magical universe there are no coincidences and there are no accidents. Nothing happens unless someone wills it to happen. The dogma of science is that the will cannot possibly affect external forces, and I think that’s just ridiculous. It’s as bad as the church. My viewpoint is the exact contrary of the scientific viewpoint. I believe that if you run into somebody in the street it’s for a reason.
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