The writer is the person who stands outside society, independent of affiliation and independent of influence.
Don DelilloRead
It's all about time, dimwit time, inferior time, people checking watches and other devices, other reminders. This is time draining out of our lives. Cities were built to measure time, to remove time from nature. There's an endless counting down, he said. When you strip away surfaces, when you see into it, what's left is terror. This is the thing that literature was meant to cure. The epic poem, the bedtime story.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects on how modern society measures and consumes time, suggesting it leads to a sense of terror that literature aims to alleviate.
Don DeLillo's quote emphasizes the pervasive nature of time in our lives and how cities and technology contribute to a constant awareness of time passing. He suggests that this relentless ticking can lead to anxiety and fear, stripping away the natural and immersive experiences that literature, such as epic poems and stories, seeks to restore, providing comfort and insight into the human condition.
Themes
TimeLiteratureSocietyAnxietyNature
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of literature, one might quote DeLillo to emphasize how storytelling helps us cope with the pressures of modern life.
More from Don Delillo
All quotes →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
You are not in the world...the world is in you," what did he mean? [That is, you are not in the world," that is, there is no "you" that is real or in any world. "The world is in you" means that the world is in your "mind" and is nothing more than a figment of your programming-and-conditioning-induced imaginings.]
Sri Nisargadatta MaharajRead
In spite of my surroundings, of my education, I had no love for God.
Robert Green IngersollRead
In an organic environment, every place is unique, and the different places also cooperate, with no parts left over, to create a global whole - a whole which can be identified by everyone who is part of it.
Christopher AlexanderRead
Everything's much too big here,' thought Moominmamma. 'Or perhaps I'm too small.
Tove JanssonRead
Well, we think that time "passes," flows past us, but what if it is we who move forward, from past to future, always discovering the new? It would be a little like reading a book, you see. The book is all there, all at once, between its covers. But if you want to read the story and understand it, you must begin with the first page, and go forward, always in order. So the universe would be a very great book, and we would be very small readers.
Ursula K. Le GuinRead
The true penance comes when God takes away the soul's health and strength for doing penance. Even though I have mentioned elsewhere the great pain this lack causes, the pain is much more intense here. All these things must come to the soul from its roots, from where it is planted.
Teresa Of AvilaRead