David Lipsky: Why aren't you married at thirty-four? David Foster Wallace: You first. David Lipsky: Um-I think it's hard to fill that role...to cast it and to fill it when you know it's for thirty or forty years...someone who, whatever mental landsca...
He couldn't make the thought go anywhere, and soon zoned out into watching the television screen. It showed a crazy-haired old gent tramping around an undistinguished patch of countryside. He couldn't remember selecting the channel, and with the soun...
We'll choose knowledge no matter what, we'll maim ourselves in the process, we'll stick our hands into the flames for it if necessary. Curiosity is not our only motive; love or grief or despair or hatred is what drives us on. We'll spy relentlessly o...
Outside the seasons passed: sun, snow, spring green, October storms . . . was this a vision of my future? When would the shunning hero come, to set the clock if my life in motion again? Would he come some morning, or in the night? In April or Decembe...
Julia", I answered breathlessly. "Chloe, are you in the bathroom fucking that nice slice of man cake?" "I'll be there in a second, okay?" I ended the call and shoved the phone back into my bag. I looked up at him, feeling my rational side return afte...
A brick could be attached to a parachute and tossed out of an airplane, to test if it opens up properly. Well, the good news is the parachute worked as planned, but the bad news is the only other parachute on board is strapped to my back, and I’m a...
Jim. If you have any other outside events, don’t confess them. That’s my advice, okay?”“What am I going to do, Bob? I have no family.”“You have family,” Bob said. “You have a wife who hates you. Kids who are furious with you. A brothe...
Lovers do things together! They rent videos, they ride Ferris wheels, they go out for pizza, they play Scrabble. They . . . they talk!' 'Talk?' He lifted his head and frowned, his eyes puzzled. 'We talk all the time, Raine. I've never had such talkat...
July 15, 1991 Nita: Mv mother was a paragon of our neighborhood, People always come up to us with hugs, saying "You have the most wonderful mother." l'd think. “Don't you see what's going on in this house?” To this day, if somehow even in jest ra...
And what we’ve been always been is…?” “Is living on borrowed time. Never caring about who’s paying for it, who’s starving somewhere else all jammed together so we can have cheap food, a house, a yard in the burbs … planetwide, more ever...
In the country whereto I go I shall not see the face of my friend Nor her hair the color of sunburnt grasses; Together we shall not find The land on whose hills bends the new moon In air traversed of birds. What have I thought of love? I have said, "...
Could it be? Samantha Kingston? Home? On a Friday?” I roll my eyes. “I don’t know. Did you do a lot of acid in the sixties? Could be a flashback.” “I was two years old in 1960. I came too late for the party.” He leans down and pecks me on...
...there is therefore now no condemnation for two reasons: you are dead now; and God, as the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, has been dead all along. The blame game was over before it started. It really was. All Jesus did was announce th...
Most families around town only had a bottle of aspirin in their medicine cabinets. If you had the flu, you took an aspirin. If you had a toothache, you took an aspirin. If you were bitten by a snake, you took an aspirin. If you developed kidney probl...
We forget the gospel when we neglect our adoption and think that we're still just a hired servant. The Father doesn't let us come to him on those terms. We will either come as sons or we will stay with the pigs. He won't let us earn anything from him...
E.L. Doctorow said once said that 'Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.' You don't have to see where you're going, you don't have to see your destination...
Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that i...
Since middle-class Western women can best be weakened psychologically now that we are stronger materially, the beauty myth, as it has resurfaced in the last generation, has had to draw on more technological sophistication and reactionary fervor than ...
No matter, they weren’t going anywhere. Never again. Two skeletons buried beneath a dead city. No more fitting a barrow for a warrior of the Apocalypse and a Malazan soldier. That seemed just, poetic even. He would not complain, and when he stood a...
Hey, have you ever heard of the Alchemists? " "Sure, " he said. "Of course you have. " "Why? Did you run into them? " "Kind of. " "What'd you do? " "Why do you think I did anything? " He laughed. "Alchemists only show up when trouble happens, and you...
When I realized I was going to die, the only thing I could think about was you and what an idiot I’d been for not telling you how I felt about you. I think I’ve loved you from the moment you lifted that awful blindfold off my face. I opened my ey...
