You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do.
David Foster WallaceRead
The reader becomes God, for all textual purposes. I see your eyes glazing over, so I'll hush.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests that readers possess the power to interpret and create meaning from text similar to a deity's omniscience.
David Foster Wallace's quote emphasizes the transformative role of the reader in engaging with literature. It implies that readers have the capability to derive meaning from words, effectively granting them a god-like power in the realm of interpretation. The quote also hints at the complexity or heaviness of the material, acknowledging the potential for disengagement while humorously recognizing the importance of the reading experience.
Themes
ReadingInterpretationLiteratureMeaningPower
In practice
Example use cases
In a book club discussion about the role of the reader in literature.
More from David Foster Wallace
All quotes →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.
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It seems important to find ways of reminding ourselves that most 'familiarity' is meditated and delusive.
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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 you’ve never known will wash over you and just about kill you. Ride these out, and it’s like stepping from black and white into color. Like water after days in the desert. Instant bliss in every atom.
David Foster WallaceRead
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