David Foster Quotes

• Don't do what you're taught to do, do what you love to do.

  David Foster

  Taught, What You Love

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• Whitney Houston was a laser beam ... She always gave me better than what I asked for in the studio

  David Foster

  Houston, Lasers, Beam

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• This is what the real, no bullshit value of your liberal arts education is supposed to be about: how to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone day in and day out.

  David Foster

  Art, Real, Bullshit

  "David Foster Wallace's Legendary Graduation Speech Is Now An Awesome Short Film". "This Is Water" Speech at Kenyon College, www.businessinsider.com. 2005.

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• You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't.

  David Foster

  David Foster Wallace’s Commencement Address at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, www.1843magazine.com. September 18, 2008.

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• The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day. That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.

  David Foster

  Real, Sacrifice, Thinking

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• Don't be too precious about your craft... there's only 26 letters and 12 notes, and Shakespeare and Beethoven said it all better than any of us ever will

  David Foster

  Crafts, Letters, Notes

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• We all suffer alone in the real world; true empathy's impossible.

  David Foster

  Real, Empathy, Suffering

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• Try to let what is unfair teach you.

  David Foster

  Trying, Infinite Jest, Unfair

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• The really important kind of freedom involves...being able truly to care about other people...

  David Foster

  Inspirational, Freedom, Sacrifice

  David Foster Wallace’s Commencement Address at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, www.1843magazine.com. September 18, 2008.

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• It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive, day in and day out.

  David Foster

  Alive, Conscious, Hard

  David Foster Wallace’s Commencement Address at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, www.1843magazine.com. September 18, 2008.

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• 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.

  David Foster

  Reality, Gentleman, Heroism

  "The Pale King by David Foster Wallace - review" by Michael Sayeau, www.theguardian.com. April 24, 2011.

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• It seems like the big difference between good art and so-so art lies somewhere in the art's heart's purpose, the agenda of the consciousness behind the text. It's got something to do with love, with having the discipline to talk out of the part of yourself that can love instead of the part that just wants to be loved.

  David Foster

  Art, Lying, Differences

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• Tennis's beauty's infinite roots are self-competitive. You compete with your own limits to transcend the self in imagination and execution. Disappear inside the game: break through limits: transcend: improve: win.

  David Foster

  Winning, Self, Break Through

  "I jest you not: how David Foster Wallace changed my life" by Matthew Hammett Knott, www.indiewire.com. January 17, 2012.

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• You get to decide what to worship.

  David Foster

  Worship, Foster Children

  "Some of the best commencement speeches ever". www.theglobeandmail.com. June 16, 2014.

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• Fiction either moves mountains or it's boring; it moves mountains or it sits on its ass.

  David Foster

  Moving, Mountain, Fiction

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• There's an evolutionary imperative why we give a crap about our family and friends, and there's an evolutionary imperative why we don't give a crap about anybody else. If we loved all people indiscriminately, we couldn't function.

  David Foster

  Love, People, Giving

  "Fictional character: Dr. Gregory House". TV Series "House" ("TB or Not TB", 2005), www.imdb.com. (2004–2012).

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• How totally banal of you to ask what I really mean.

  David Foster

  Mean, Really Mean, Asks

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• We are who people think we are.

  David Foster

  Life, Thinking, People

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• The sun like a sneaky keyhole view of hell.

  David Foster

  Views, Sun, Hell

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• Ya' know, these days kids seem to be getting younger and younger.

  David Foster

  Kids, These Days, Knows

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• CPR to those elements of what’s human and magical that still live and glow despite the times’ darkness.

  David Foster

  Cpr, Darkness, Elements

  Interview with Larry McCaffery, www.dalkeyarchive.com. 1993.

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• An ad that pretends to be art is – at absolute best – like somebody who smiles warmly at you only because he wants something from you.

  David Foster

  Art, Want Something, Genuine Smiles

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• It looks like you can write a minimalist piece without much bleeding. And you can. But not a good one.

  David Foster

  Writing, Looks, Pieces

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• I don’t really mean what I’m saying.

  David Foster

  Mean, Really Mean

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• Lightfoot's voice is such a part of the fabric of Canada, I know it almost as well as I know my own voice.

  David Foster

  Voice, Fabric, Canada

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