Infinite Jest Quotes

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

  David Foster Wallace

  Inspirational, Reading, Book

  David Foster Wallace (2011). “Infinite Jest”, p.16, Hachette UK

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• 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

  Song, Imagination, Gorges

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

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

  David Foster Wallace

  Bipolar, Secret, Different

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• ....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

  Book, Lines, Way

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• 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

  Hurt, Kindness, Fall

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

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• 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

  Inspirational, Graduation, Freedom

  "David Foster Wallace's Kenyon Commencement Speech" by Carolyn Kellogg, latimesblogs.latimes.com. September 19, 2008.

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

  David Foster Wallace

  Inspirational, Truth, Freedom

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

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• 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

  Home, Reality, Voting

  "Up, Simba!". Essay by David Foster Wallace, September 2000.

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

  David Foster Wallace

  Life, Thinking, People

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

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

  David Foster Wallace

  Inspirational, Letting Go, Addiction

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

  David Foster

  Inspirational, Freedom, Sacrifice

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

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• 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

  Dog, Night, Giving

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

  David Foster Wallace

  Guarantees, Logical, Persons

  David Foster Wallace (2011). “Infinite Jest”, p.145, Hachette UK

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• It takes great personal courage to let yourself appear weak.

  David Foster Wallace

  Personal Courage, Weak

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

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• There is such a thing as raw, unalloyed, agendaless kindness.

  David Foster Wallace

  Kindness, Anxiety Attacks, Jest

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

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• 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

  Doe, Generations, Way

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

  David Foster Wallace

  Thinking, People, Substance

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

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• My chest bumps like a dryer with shoes in it.

  David Foster Wallace

  Shoes, Bumps, Dryers

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

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• 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

  Choices, What If, Temples

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

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

  David Foster Wallace

  Expectations, Forever, Talent

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

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

  David Foster Wallace

  Why Not, Reasoning, Ifs

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

  David Foster Wallace

  Inspirational, Powerful, Moments

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

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• Try to let what is unfair teach you.

  David Foster

  Trying, Unfair, Teach

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• Mario, what do you get when you cross an insomniac, an unwilling agnostic and a dyslexic?

  David Foster Wallace

  Pain, Agnostic, Crosses

  David Foster Wallace (2011). “Infinite Jest”, p.39, Hachette UK

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

  David Foster Wallace

  Missing Someone, Like You, Feels

  "Infinite Jest". Book by David Foster Wallace, www.huffingtonpost.com. February 1, 1996.

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