The writer is the person who stands outside society, independent of affiliation and independent of influence.
Don DelilloRead
People hurried past, the others of the street, endless anonymous, twenty-one lives per second, race-walking in their faces and pigments, sprays of fleetest being.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects on the rapid pace of urban life and the anonymity of individuals within it.
Don DeLillo's quote captures the essence of modern existence, where individuals are often lost in the hustle and bustle of city life. It evokes a sense of both the vibrancy and the detachment that comes with living in a densely populated environment, highlighting how people can coexist yet remain invisible to one another as they rush through their daily routines.
Themes
Urban LifeAnonymityHustleExistenceIndividuality
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the fast pace of modern cities, one might use this quote to illustrate how people often overlook the lives of those around them.
More from Don Delillo
All quotes βWar 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. β¨He is either on a horse or driving a car, depending, and either way heβs carrying a gun. β¨This is one of the essential images in American mythology.
Don DelilloRead
Similar quotes
You believe that reality is something objective, external, existing in its own right. You also believe that the nature of reality is self-evident. When you delude yourself into thinking that you see something, you assume that everyone else sees the same thing as you. But I tell you, Winston, that reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else. Not in the individual mind, which can make mistakes, and in any case soon perishes: only in the mind of the Paty, which is collective and immortal.
George OrwellRead
I must not permit the evil capabilities of human nature to sour my faith in the tremendous good that is possible despite the frailty of that nature.
Mother AngelicaRead
It is my conviction that nothing enduring _x000D_ _x000D_ can be built on violence. _x000D_ _x000D_ The only safe way to overcome an enemy _x000D_ _x000D_ is to make of that enemy a friend.
Mahatma GandhiRead
Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.
James MadisonRead
The sad and horrible conclusion is that no one cared that Jews were being murdered... This is the Jewish lesson of the Holocaust and this is the lesson which Auschwitz taught us.
Ariel SharonRead
Perhaps if you know you are insane then you are not insane. Or you are becoming sane, finally.
Philip K. DickRead