David Foster Wallace

"The gift of life is the chance to figure out what life is about."

"Real change requires admitting that everything is already different."

"The most honest thing about us is our desperate need for connection."

"You're not as special as you think, and that's actually liberating."

"The machinery of distraction exists to keep us from ourselves."

"Art is communication from one lonely human to another."

"The real problem isn't life; it's your relationship to life."

"You have to feel your own pain to be truly alive."

"Modern entertainment is a systematic avoidance of self-knowledge."

"The paradox of freedom is that it requires discipline."

"What you pay attention to determines the life you actually have."

"The only real failure is not trying to understand yourself."

"The so-called 'access' to the internet has become a kind of electronic heroin."

"We're all lonely for something we're not sure we even want."

"The real unforgivable act is not violence, but boredom."

"Pleasure becomes a value, a teleology, when it's the only thing you worship."

"Sarcasm is the refuge of the weak."

"The so-called 'real world' will not discourage you from operating on or around it."

"Entertainment is the only thing keeping us from hanging ourselves."

"Everything you love is bound to disappoint you eventually."

"The loneliest moment in someone's life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart."

"Addiction is when you can't stop even though you desperately want to."

"Kindness is the given, the basic core of what it means to be human."

"Most people don't really want the truth; they want reassurance."

"The so-called 'real world' is just a construct of those who can't imagine anything better."

"We accept the reality of the world we are presented with, which is really strange."

"The fear of wasting time is one of the most paralyzing fears."

"Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is the wealth of self."

"Tennis is just physical chess played at high speed."

"It is unimaginably hard to do this to yourself in actual reality."