And make no mistake: irony tyrannizes us. The reason why our pervasive cultural irony is at once so powerful and so unsatisfying is that an ironist is impossible to pin down. All U.S. irony is based on an implicit "I donโt really mean what Iโm saying." So what does irony as a cultural norm mean to say? That itโs impossible to mean what you say? That maybe itโs too bad itโs impossible, but wake up and smell the coffee already? Most likely, I think, todayโs irony ends up saying: "How totally banal of you to ask what I really mean.
David Foster WallaceOf course, the fact that Dostoevsky can tell a juicy story isn't enough to make him great. If it were, Judith Krantz and John Grisham would be great fiction writers, and by any but the most commercial standards they're not even very good.
David Foster WallaceGod, what a ghastly enterprise to be in, though-and what an odd way to achieve success. I'm an exhibitionist who wants to hide, but is unsuccessful at hiding; therefore, somehow I succeed.
David Foster WallaceK--: 'When they say "I am my own person," "I do not need a man," "I am responsible for my own sexuality," they are actually telling you just what they want you to make them forget.
David Foster WallaceThe entire ball game, in terms of both the exam and life, was what you gave attention to vs. what you willed yourself to not.
David Foster WallaceDostoevsky wrote fiction about identity, moral value, death, will, sexual vs. spiritual love, greed, freedom, obsession, reason, faith, suicide. And he did it without ever reducing his characters to mouthpieces or his books to tracts. His concern was always what it is to be a human beingโthat is, how to be an actual *person*, someone whose life is informed by values and principles, instead of just an especially shrewd kind of self-preserving animal.
David Foster Wallace