Almost nothing important that ever happens to you happens because you engineer it.
David Foster WallaceIt's probably hard to feel any sort of Romantic spiritual connection to nature when you have to make your living from it.
David Foster WallaceI had, by thirteen, developed a sort of Taoist hubris about my ability to control via non-control.
David Foster WallaceAmerican experience seems to suggest that people are virtually unlimited in their need to give themselves away, on various levels. Some just prefer to do it in secret.
David Foster WallaceBoth destiny's kisses and its dope-slaps illustrate an individual person's basic personal powerlessness over the really meaningful events in his life: i.e. almost nothing important that ever happens to you happens because you engineer it. Destiny has no beeper; destiny always leans trenchcoated out of an alley with some sort of Psst that you usually can't even hear because you're in such a rush to or from something important you've tried to engineer.
David Foster Wallace