The truth is that the heroism of your childhood entertainments was not true valor. It was theatre. The grand gesture, the moment of choice, the mortal danger, the external foe, the climactic battle whose outcome resolves all--all designed to appear heroic, to excite and gratify and audience. Gentlemen, welcome to the world of reality--there is no audience. No one to applaud, to admire. No one to see you. Do you understand?Here is the truth--actual heroism receives no ovation, entertains no one. No one queues up to see it. No one is interested. β¨ The Pale King. Book by David Foster Wallace, 2011.
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- To be willing to sort of die in order to move the reader, somehow. Even now I'm scared about how sappy this'll look in print, saying this. β¨ Interview With Larry McCaffery, www.dalkeyarchive.com. 199 β¦ βΆ
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- There is no hatred in my love for you. Only a sadness I feel all the more strongly for my inability to explain or describe it. β¨ David Foster Wallace (2004). The Broom of the System: A Novel, p.187, β¦ βΆ
- Great short stories and great jokes have a lot in common. Both depend on what communication-theorists sometimes called exformation, which is a certain quantity of vital information removed from but e β¦ βΆ
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