David Foster Wallace citáty

strana 5

„Někdy nasednu do taxíku a řeknu: "Knihovna, a šlápněte na to."“

„Každý je ve své tajné nevyslovené víře totožný, že se hluboko liší od ostatních.“

„… logická platnost není zárukou pravdy.“

„Budete méně znepokojeni tím, co si o vás ostatní lidé myslí, jakmile si uvědomíte, jak vzácně to dělají.“

„Pravda tě osvobodí. Ale ne, dokud s tebou neskončí.“

“I believe I want adult sanity, which seems to me the only unalloyed form of heroism available today.”

“Most really pretty girls have pretty ugly feet, and so does Mindy Metalman, Lenore notices, all of a sudden.”

“There is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.”

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

“My chest bumps like a dryer with shoes in it.”

“For those who've never experienced a sunrise in the rural midwest, it's roughly as soft and romantic as someone's abruptly hitting the lights in a dark room.”

“It is tragic and sad and chaotic and lovely. All life is the same, as citizens of the human State: the animating limits are within, to be killed and mourned, over and over again.”

“Like so many other nerdy, disaffected young people of that time, I dreamed of becoming an 'artist', i. e., somebody whose adult job was original and creative instead of tedious and dronelike.”

“And when he came to, he was flat on his back on the beach in the freezing sand, and it was raining out of a low sky, and the tide was way out.”

“I cannot say what color Lenore Beadsman’s eyes are; I cannot look at them; they are the sun to me.”

“So yo then man what's your story?”

“She wanted only tall smooth bottles whose labels spoke of Proof.”

“So which is the lie? Hard or soft? Silence or time?”

“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.”

“Be on guard. The road widens, and many of the detours are seductive.”

“[T]o really try to be informed and literate today is to feel stupid nearly all the time, and to need help.”

“The entire ball game, in terms of both the exam and life, was what you gave attention to vs. what you willed yourself to not.”

“They can kill you, but the legalities of eating you are quite a bit dicier.”

“Abstruse dullness is actually a much more effective shield than is secrecy. For the great disadvantage of secrecy is that it’s interesting.”

“I'm not afraid of new things. I'm just afraid of feeling alone even when there's somebody else there. I'm afraid of feeling bad. Maybe that's selfish, but it's the way I feel.”

“She was terrified of everything, and terrified to show it.”

“… perversely, it is often more fun to want something than to have it.”

“It is extremely difficult to stay alert & attentive instead of getting hypnotized by the constant monolog inside your head.”

“… the sun would leave my sky if I couldn't assume you'd simply come and tell me you were sad.”

“Learning how to think' really means learning how to exercise some control over how & what you think. It means being conscious & aware enough to choose what you pay attention to & to choose how you construct meaning from experience.”

“If Realism called it like it saw it, Metafiction simply called it as it saw itself seeing itself see it.”

“God, what a ghastly enterprise to be in, though--and what an odd way to achieve success. I'm an exhibitionist who wants to hide, but is unsuccessful at hiding; therefore, somehow I succeed.”

“Beauty is not the goal of competitive sports, but high-level sports are a prime venue for the expression of human beauty. The relation is roughly that of courage to war. The human beauty we’re talking about here is beauty of a particular type; it might be called kinetic beauty. Its power and appeal are universal. It has nothing to do with sex or cultural norms. What it seems to have to do with, really, is human beings’ reconciliation with the fact of having a body.”

“'So then at forty-six years of age I came here to learn to live by cliches,' is what Day says to Charlotte Treat right after Randy Lenz asked what time it was, again, at 0825. 'To turn my will and life over to the care of cliches. One day at a time. Easy does it. First things first. Courage is fear that has said its prayers. Ask for help. Thy will not mine be done. It works if you work it. Grow or go. Keep coming back.' […] I walk around with my arms out straight in front of me and recite these cliches. In a monotone. No inflection necessary. Could that be one? Could that be added to the cliche-pool? "No inflection necessary"? Too many syllables, probably.'”