Top 26 Quotes by David Foster Wallace

What TV is extremely good at - and realize that this is 'all it does' - is discerning what large numbers of people think they want, and supplying it.

Pleasure becomes a value, a teleological end in itself. It's probably more Western than U.S. per se.

This might be one way to start talking about differences between the early postmodern writers of the fifties and sixties and their contemporary descendants.

Rap's conscious response to the poverty and oppression of U.S. blacks is like some hideous parody of sixties black pride.

It can become an exercise in trying to get the reader to like and admire you instead of an exercise in creative art.

The problem is that once the rules of art are debunked, and once the unpleasant realities the irony diagnoses are revealed and diagnosed, 'then' what do we do?

It looks like you can write a minimalist piece without much bleeding. And you can. But not a good one.

TV's 'real' agenda is to be 'liked,' because if you like what you're seeing, you'll stay tuned. TV is completely unabashed about this; it's its sole raison.

I often think I can see it in myself and in other young writers, this desperate desire to please coupled with a kind of hostility to the reader.

This diagnosis can be done in about two lines. It doesn't engage anybody.