The writer is the person who stands outside society, independent of affiliation and independent of influence.
Don DelilloRead
I embarked on my life - I didn't do anything. I don't have an explanation.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the complexity of existence and the often inexplicable nature of our choices in life.
In this quote, Don Delillo expresses the notion that life is more about the journey and our experiences than about having a clear or rational explanation for our actions or decisions. It suggests that simply living and embracing life is an act in itself, regardless of whether one understands the reasoning behind it. This can invoke a sense of humility in the face of life's intricacies and unpredictability.
In practice
This quote can be used in a philosophical discussion about the meaning of life.
The writer is the person who stands outside society, independent of affiliation and independent of influence.
War is the form nostalgia takes when men are hard-pressed to say something good about their country.
American writers ought to stand and live in the margins, and be more dangerous.
For me, writing is a concentrated form of thinking.
I used to think it was possible for an artist to alter the inner life of the culture. Now bomb-makers and gunmen have taken that territory.
[I]n the American soul there is a lonely individual standing in a vast landscape. β¨He is either on a horse or driving a car, depending, and either way heβs carrying a gun. β¨This is one of the essential images in American mythology.
Knowledge and liberty are so prevalent in this country, that I do not believe that the United States would ever be disposed to establish one religious sect, and lay all others under legal disabilities. But as we know not what may take place hereafter, and any such test would be exceedingly injurious to the rights of free citizens, I cannot think it altogether superfluous to have added a clause, which secures us from the possibility of such oppression.
Which is crueler, an old man's lost memories of a life lived, or a young man's lost memories of the life he meant to live?
Man is alone everywhere. But the solitude of the Mexican, under the great stone night of the high plateau that is still inhabited by insatiable gods, is very different from that of the North American, who wanders in an abstract world of machines, fellow citizens and moral precepts.
You can't quantify human pain the way you can measure out sugar. Death comes one individual at a time.
One has to completely humiliate oneself to be what the Beatles were . . . . It happened bit by bit, until . . . you're doing exactly what you don't want to do with people you can't stand -- the people you hated when you were ten.
In 1968, I became a vegetarian after realizing that animals feel afraid, cold, hungry, and unhappy like we do.
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