The writer is the person who stands outside society, independent of affiliation and independent of influence.
Don DelilloRead
Just because it's on the radio doesn't mean we have to suspend belief in the evidence of our senses.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of trusting our own perceptions over external influences like media.
Don Delillo's quote suggests that individuals should not blindly accept information presented through media, such as radio broadcasts, without questioning its veracity. It underscores the significant role of personal experience and empirical evidence in forming our beliefs and opinions, urging us to remain critical thinkers rather than passive consumers of information.
In practice
In a discussion about media influence, one might cite this quote to emphasize the need for critical thinking.
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. 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.
Our lives carry us along in ways we cannot control, and almost nothing stays with us. It dies when we do, and death is something that happens to us every day.
There is not a day but sin foils or is foiled, prevails or is prevailed upon. It will always be so while we live in this world. Sin will not spare for one day. There is no safety but in a constant warfare for those who desire deliverance from sin's perplexing rebellion.
Today's dissenters mainly focus their attention and expend their energies on the most inconsequential of trivia. ...Allegedly serious intellectuals quibble endlessly over such ridiculous trivialities...In the meantime, the public is lulled into a perilous somnolence, spoon-fed pap, and palpable untruths, many of which are turned out by special-interest and pressure groups and well organized propaganda machines.
They are more human and more brotherly towards one another, it seems to me, than we are. But perhaps that is merely because they feel themselves to be more unfortunate than us.
The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection.
We can't get at crime unless we know what language it speaks. Otherwise, we are just suppressing the cough, not curing the disease.
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