"The truth is that the heroism of your……" — David Foster Wallace
"The truth is that the heroism of your childhood entertainments was not true valor. It was theatre. The grand gesture, the moment of choice, the mortal danger, the external foe, the climactic battle whose outcome resolves all--all designed to appear heroic, to excite and gratify and audience. Gentlemen, welcome to the world of reality--there is no audience. No one to applaud, to admire. No one to see you. Do you understand?Here is the truth--actual heroism receives no ovation, entertains no one. No one queues up to see it. No one is interested."
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David Foster Wallace
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303 Quotes by David Foster Wallace
David Foster Wallace has 303 quotes on this site.
A few more worth reading:
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We will, of course, without hesitation use art to parody, ridicule, debunk, or criticize ideologies.
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One paradox of professional writing is that books written solely for money and/or acclaim will almost never be good enough…
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God, what a ghastly enterprise to be in, though-and what an odd way to achieve success. I'm an exhibitionist who…
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When I say or write something, there are actually a whole lot of different things I am communicating. The propositional…
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Under fun's new administration, writing fiction becomes a way to go deep inside yourself and illuminate precisely the stuff you…
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Of course, the fact that Dostoevsky can tell a juicy story isn't enough to make him great. If it were,…
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Some words have to be explicitly uttered, Lenore. Only by actually uttering certain words does one really DO what one…
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You have a great deal of yourself on the line, writing- your vanity is at stake. You discover a tricky…
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Postmodern irony and cynicism's become an end in itself, a measure of hip sophistication and literary savvy. Few artists dare…
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No one can call themselves a writer until he or she has written at least fifty stories.
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Molly Notkin often confides on the phone to Joelle van Dyne about the one tormented love of Nokin's life thus…
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No single, individual moment is in and of itself unendurable.
See all 303 quotes by David Foster Wallace »
More Actual Quotes
This quote is filed under Actual Quotes,
one of 1,266 quotes in that category. Here are a few more:
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The fatigue produced on the muscles of the human frame does not altogether depend on the actual force employed in…
— Charles Babbage
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Where do we say that a cell became a blade of grass, which became a starfish, which became a cat,…
— Michele Bachmann
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The Canadian run can be no different, at least in terms of actual running.
— Dennis Banks
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Fishing is boring, unless you catch an actual fish, and then it is disgusting.
— Dave Barry
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I do love to eavesdrop. It's inspirational, not only for subject matter but for actual dialogue, the way people talk.
— Lynda Barry
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Percentage margins don't matter. What matters always is dollar margins: the actual dollar amount. Companies are valued not on their…
— Jeff Bezos
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It is evident that skepticism, while it makes no actual change in man, always makes him feel better.
— Ambrose Bierce
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Sure, I suffered a lot. But it's not like the end of the world and it's not who I am.…
— Ben Affleck
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I've thought for the last decade or so, the only actual place raw truth was seeping through in newspapers was…
— Elayne Boosler
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The importance to the writer of first writing must be out of all proportion of the actual value of what…
— Elizabeth Bowen
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Congress acknowledged that society's accumulated myths and fears about disability and disease are as handicapping as are the physical limitations…
— William J. Brennan
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You don't want flame to hit your food. Flame is bad. Flame does nasty things to food. It makes soot…
— Alton Brown
See all 1,266 Actual Quotes »
