Infinite Jest Quotes:

No single, individual moment is in and of itself unendurable.

- David Foster Wallace

source: "Infinite Jest". Book by David Foster Wallace, 1996.

topic: Inspirational, Powerful, Infinite Jest, Unendurable

My chest bumps like a dryer with shoes in it.

- David Foster Wallace

source: "Infinite Jest". Book by David Foster Wallace, February 1, 1996.

topic: Shoes, Bumps, Infinite Jest, Dryers

Why not? Why not?Why not not, then, if the best reasoning you can contrive is why not?

- David Foster Wallace

topic: Why Not, Infinite Jest, Reasoning

I do things like get in a taxi and say, "The library, and step on it.

- David Foster Wallace

topic: Inspirational, Book, Reading, Infinite Jest

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rims at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen?

- William Shakespeare

source: 'Hamlet' (1601) act 5, sc. 1, l. [201]

topic: Song, Imagination, Gorges, Horatio, Infinite Jest

Everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else.

- David Foster Wallace

topic: Bipolar, Secret, Way, Infinite Jest, Identical

....there is an ending [to Infinite Jest] as far as I'm concerned. Certain kind of parallel lines are supposed to start converging in such a way that an "end" can be projected by the reader somewhere beyond the right frame. If no such convergence or projection occured to you, then the book's failed for you.

- David Foster Wallace

topic: Book, Lines, Way, Infinite Jest, Parallel Lines

That sometimes human beings have to just sit in one place and, like, hurt. That you will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do. That there is such a thing as raw, unalloyed, agendaless kindness. That it is possible to fall asleep during an anxiety attack. That concentrating on anything is very hard work.

- David Foster Wallace

topic: Hurt, Kindness, Fall, Infinite Jest, Anxiety Attacks

The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day.

- David Foster Wallace

topic: Inspirational, Graduation, Sacrifice, Infinite Jest, Awareness Of Others

The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you.

- David Foster Wallace

source: "Infinite Jest". Book by David Foster Wallace, February 1, 1996.

topic: Inspirational, Truth, Freedom, Infinite Jest, Truth Will Set You Free

In reality, there is no such thing as not voting: you either vote by voting, or you vote by staying home and tacitly doubling the value of some Diehard's vote.

- David Foster Wallace

topic: Home, Reality, Voting, Infinite Jest, Worship You

You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do.

- David Foster Wallace

source: "Infinite Jest". Book by David Foster Wallace, February 1, 1996.

topic: Life, Thinking, People, Infinite Jest, Anxiety Attacks

Everything I’ve ever let go of has claw marks on it.

- David Foster Wallace

topic: Inspirational, Letting Go, Addiction, Infinite Jest

The really important kind of freedom involves being able truly to care about other people.

- David Foster

source: David Foster Wallace’s Commencement Address at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, www.1843magazine.com. September 18, 2008.

topic: People, Important, Care, Infinite Jest, Awareness Of Others

Mario, what do you get when you cross an insomniac, an unwilling agnostic and a dyslexic?" "I give." "You get someone who stays up all night torturing himself mentally over the question of whether or not there's a dog.

- David Foster Wallace

topic: Dog, Night, Giving, Infinite Jest, Up All Night

...logical validity is not a guarantee of truth.

- David Foster Wallace

topic: Guarantees, Logical, Persons, Infinite Jest, Validity

... it takes great personal courage to let yourself appear weak.

- David Foster Wallace

source: "Infinite Jest". Book by David Foster Wallace, February 1, 1996.

topic: Weak, Infinite Jest, Personal Courage

Like most North Americans of his generation, Hal tends to know way less about why he feels certain ways about the objects and pursuits he's devoted to than he does about the objects and pursuits themselves. It's hard to say for sure whether this is even exceptionally bad, this tendency.

- David Foster Wallace

topic: Doe, Generations, Way, Infinite Jest

...most Substance-addicted people are also addicted to thinking, meaning they have a compulsive and unhealthy relationship with their own thinking.

- David Foster Wallace

source: David Foster Wallace (2011). “Infinite Jest”, p.146, Hachette UK

topic: Thinking, People, Substance, Infinite Jest, Unhealthy Relationships

What if sometimes there is no choice about what to love? What if the temple comes to Mohammed? What if you just love? without deciding? You just do: you see her and in that instant are lost to sober account-keeping and cannot choose but to love?

- David Foster Wallace

source: David Foster Wallace (2011). “Infinite Jest”, p.84, Hachette UK

topic: Choices, What If, Temples, Infinite Jest

Talent is its own expectation, Jim: you either live up to it or it waves a hankie, receding forever.

- David Foster Wallace

source: David Foster Wallace (2009). “Infinite Jest”, p.208, Hachette UK

topic: Expectations, Forever, Talent, Infinite Jest

Try to let what is unfair teach you.

- David Foster

topic: Trying, Unfair, Teach, Infinite Jest

It's weird to feel like you miss someone you're not even sure you know.

- David Foster Wallace

topic: Missing Someone, Missing, Like You, Infinite Jest

You can be shaped, or you can be broken. There is not much in between. Try to learn. Be coachable. Try to learn from everybody, especially those who fail. This is hard. ... How promising you are as a Student of the Game is a function of what you can pay attention to without running away.

- David Foster Wallace

source: David Foster Wallace (2011). “Infinite Jest”, p.128, Hachette UK

topic: Running, Games, Broken, Infinite Jest

What passes for hip cynical transcendence of sentiment is really some kind of fear of being really human, since to be really human [...] is probably to be unavoidably sentimental and naïve and goo-prone and generally pathetic.

- David Foster Wallace

topic: Cynical, Hips, Sentimental, Infinite Jest

It did what all ads are supposed to do: create an anxiety relievable by purchase.

- David Foster Wallace

topic: Anxiety, Marketing, Advertising, Infinite Jest

It now lately sometimes seemed a black miracle to me that people could actually care deeply about a subject or pursuit, and could go on caring this way for years on end. Could dedicate their entire lives to it. It seemed admirable and at the same time pathetic. We are all dying to give our lives away to something, maybe.

- David Foster Wallace

topic: Caring, Years, People, Infinite Jest

I read,' I say. 'I study and read. I bet I've read everything you've read. Don't think I haven't. I consume libraries. I wear out spines and ROM drives. I do things like get in a taxi and say, "The library, and step on it.

- David Foster Wallace

topic: Book, Reading, Thinking, Infinite Jest

Try to learn to let what is unfair teach you.

- David Foster Wallace

source: David Foster Wallace (2011). “Infinite Jest”, p.127, Hachette UK

topic: Inspirational, Trying, Unfair, Infinite Jest

He said she went around with her feelings out in front of her with an arm around the feelings' windpipe and a Glock 9mm. to the feelings' temple like a terrorist with a hostage, daring you to shoot.

- David Foster Wallace

topic: Feelings, Arms, Temples, Infinite Jest, Glocks

You know, I don't want to be offensive. But 'Infinite Jest' [regarded by many as Wallace's masterpiece] is just awful. It seems ridiculous to have to say it. He can't think, he can't write. There's no discernible talent.

- Harold Bloom

topic: Writing, Thinking, Want, Infinite Jest