You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do.
David Foster WallaceRead
Everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute center of the universe, the realest, most vivid and important person in existence.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights the individual's perception of their own significance in the vastness of existence.
David Foster Wallace's quote reflects the human tendency to view oneself as the focal point of their own universe. It underscores a profound belief in one's own experiences and existence, suggesting that each person feels uniquely significant in their own life narrative, even in the face of a broader, often indifferent universe.
Themes
Self-ImportancePerceptionExistenceIndividualityUniverse
In practice
Example use cases
A motivational speech about self-worth and significance in personal struggles.
More from David Foster Wallace
All quotes βIt seems important to find ways of reminding ourselves that most 'familiarity' is meditated and delusive.
David Foster WallaceRead
Under fun's new administration, writing fiction becomes a way to go deep inside yourself and illuminate precisely the stuff you don't want to see or let anyone else see, and this stuff usually turns out (paradoxically) to be precisely the stuff all writers and readers share and respond to, feel.
David Foster WallaceRead
Acceptance is usually more a matter of fatigue than anything else.
David Foster WallaceRead
Bliss - a-second-by-second joy and gratitude at the gift of being alive, conscious - lies on the other side of crushing, crushing boredom. Pay close attention to the most tedious thing you can find (Tax Returns, Televised Golf) and, in waves, a boredom like youβve never known will wash over you and just about kill you. Ride these out, and itβs like stepping from black and white into color. Like water after days in the desert. Instant bliss in every atom.
David Foster WallaceRead
The great thing about irony is that it splits things apart, gets up above them so we can see the flaws and hypocrisies and duplicates.
David Foster WallaceRead
Similar quotes
When you realize the value of all life, you dwell less on what is past and concentrate more on the preservation of the future.
Dian FosseyRead
We are afraid of losing what we have.
Paulo CoelhoRead
Any law that takes hold of a mans daily life cannot prevail in a community, unless the vast majority of the community are actively in favor of it. The laws that are the most operative are the laws which protect life.
Henry Ward BeecherRead
To continue living, we have to die. That's the story of humanity - generation after generation - that we are going to die. There's nothing dramatic about death except that one loses one's life.
Jose SaramagoRead
If the opponent offers keen play I don't object; but in such cases I get less satisfaction, even if I win, than from a game conducted according to all the rules of strategy with its ruthless logic.
Anatoly KarpovRead
Resignation was the defining condition of Soviet life.
Masha GessenRead