QuoteProject
Past, present and future are not amenities of language. Time unfolds into the seamsof being. It passes through you, making and shaping.
Don Delillo
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

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.

Themes

TimeBeingExistencePhilosophyReality

In practice

Example use cases

In a discussion about the philosophical implications of time, this quote can illustrate how our lives are influenced by the temporal flow.

More from Don Delillo

The writer is the person who stands outside society, independent of affiliation and independent of influence.
Don DelilloRead
War is the form nostalgia takes when men are hard-pressed to say something good about their country.
Don DelilloRead
American writers ought to stand and live in the margins, and be more dangerous.
Don DelilloRead
For me, writing is a concentrated form of thinking.
Don DelilloRead
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.
Don DelilloRead
[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.
Don DelilloRead

Similar quotes

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.
Charles SeifeRead
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.
Tony JudtRead
It is impossible to live in the past, difficult to live in the present and a waste to live in the future.
Frank HerbertRead
One cannot reign innocently: the insanity of doing so is evident. Every king is a rebel and a usurper.
Louis Antoine De Saint-JustRead
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.
Jane AustenRead
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.
William S. BurroughsRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.