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Meaning
This can be taken to mean that language is not just description, but action, especially when it comes to feelings that need to be named aloud. The quote reads as a meditation on commitment, where saying something plainly is part of making it real. It lands when someone needs to speak honestly in a relationship, because silence keeps intention half formed.
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Originally said in English.
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About David Foster Wallace
American writer and professor
David Foster Wallace was an American writer and professor. He published novels, short stories, and essays, and is best known for his 1996 novel, Infinite Jest. His work spans fiction and nonfiction, and he became especially noted for the range and ambition of his writing. In 2008, David Ulin of the Los Angeles Times described Wallace as one of the most influential and innovative writers of the previous twenty years.
More from David Foster Wallace (155 quotes) →Other sayings from David Foster Wallace
- “You see parents as kind or unkind or happy or miserable or drunk or sober or great or near-great or failed th…”David Foster Wallace
- “Literary fiction and poetry are real marginalized right now. There's a fallacy that some of my friends someti…”David Foster Wallace
- “Pleasure becomes a value, a teleological end in itself. It's probably more Western than U.S. per se.”David Foster Wallace
- “This might be one way to start talking about differences between the early postmodern writers of the fifties…”David Foster Wallace
Reading: more sayings
- “I only discovered the 'Harry Potter' series in my tenth standard. I dived right into it, often reading non-st…”Sonam Kapoor
- “No longer shall I paint interiors with men reading and women knitting. I will paint living people who breathe…”Edvard Munch
- “I read of the Kalamazoo girl who killed herself after reading the book. I am not at all surprised. She lived…”Mary MacLane
More Writing quotes
- “Of course I consider myself a Jewish writer - I am one! All of the protagonists in my five books have been Je…”Lauren Weisberger
- “I don't know any writer of fiction who enjoys trying to point out or dissect whatever they produced with stra…”Noah Baumbach
- “A writer should bury his thoughts deep and convey them through the characters in his novel.”Mo Yan
READ THE SOURCE
Books by David Foster Wallace
Infinite Jest
1996
Brief Interviews With Hideous Men
2001
The Pale King
2012
Everything and more
2003
Consider the lobster, and other essays
2005