You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do.
David Foster WallaceRead
One paradox of professional writing is that books written solely for money and/or acclaim will almost never be good enough to garner either.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Writing for money or recognition often leads to poor quality work.
David Foster Wallace highlights the paradox that when writers focus solely on financial gain or fame, their work tends to lack authenticity and quality. True value in writing comes from genuine passion and depth rather than from a desire for external validation, suggesting that success in writing is rooted in sincerity and craftsmanship rather than in the pursuit of accolades or profit.
Themes
WritingSuccessAuthenticityPassionQualityAcclaim
In practice
Example use cases
During a writing workshop, to inspire students to write from their heart, quote David Foster Wallace to emphasize the importance of authenticity in writing.
More from David Foster Wallace
All quotes βEverything 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.
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It 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.
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Acceptance is usually more a matter of fatigue than anything else.
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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
Similar quotes
But because of his telling, many who did not believe have come to believe, and some who did not care have come to care. He tells the story, out of infinite pain, partly to honor the dead, but also to warn the living - to warn the living that it could happen again and that it must never happen again. Better than one heart be broken a thousand times in the retelling, he has decided, if it means that a thousand other hearts need not be broken at all. (vi)
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Belief is not the beginning of knowledge - it is the end.
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You've got to be original, because if you're like someone else, what do they need you for?
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Desires are seeds waiting for their season to sprout. From a single seed of desire, whole forests grow.
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Growing up in Westboro, there was a culture of celebrating death and tragedy... a very calloused way of seeing other people's pain. After I left, it took me a while to be able to really empathize with what it must have been like for the loved ones of people whose funerals we protested.
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