David Foster Wallace on Importance of Quiet

David Foster Wallace is considered one of the greatest fiction writers of the late 20th century. He is widely known for his 1996 best-seller "Infinite Jest", he is also the author of "The Pale King", "Consider the Lobster", "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again", and others. In this clip, he describes the importance of quiet amidst the noise in our society today.

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[dunstarred]

The irony of watching this on a Youtube short.

[jenniferh.]

I love myself the most when I’m alone.

[BreathEmpowerment]

"All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone." -Blaise Pascal

[tommydinob]

Silence is Sacred.
So many people cannot spend time with themselves.

[shrancks]

creativity stems from boredom, and nobody is bored since social media, hence the decline in creativity

[toamatau]

You can feel this in every page of The Pale King.

[Mr.Coffee]

This spoke to me on another level. In the age of distraction, boredom is a superpower.

[AdrianPaco]

David Foster Wallace was an incredible writer and thinker of our century. I miss him 😢

[Avicenna]

I love how this man’s mind works. I so wish I could have met him, and I hate that he’s no longer with us. RIP.

[Thoughtful-Ape]

He wasn't just my favorite teacher but "This Is Water" was my favorite DFW experience. At the time, just how close he was to essentially laying out the foundations of "Truth is like Water and needs vessels to carry it" (an expression not attributed to DFW) didn't occur to me until much later in life. RIP

[roddyboethius]

We live in a world of background noise. But it's absolutely poossible to get out of it for a breath of silence

[noeditbookreviews]

Many introverts cherish silent solitude.

[louiseb]

I loved it when I visited Japan because it was unimaginably quiet, and you could hear actual birds chirping in Tokyo, which I never expected from one of the biggest cities on Earth.

[drieaz]

Marcel Duchamp's three S's: silence, solitude and slowness

[TheLastSisyphus]

I recently made a video on boredom - and DFW's words strikes right to the heart of it. There's a kind of dread in the idea of having to be alone for a while.

[davidgordon]

Some of the wisest words any of us will ever hear.

[Travis_Trauma]

It also masks the profound loneliness of broken families and marriages.

[mattgoodmangoodmanlawnmowi]

I was lucky, then I was blessed. I understand what he was saying.

But my rebellion against a tyrannical world has been to lean to cherish my alone time.

I have reached a point where I triage my battles, depending on my then present state.

But I am still willing to risk another relationship but only with a woman who knows both her value and her values, and I will come alive.

Great framing & production.

-Dan

[muphyna]

I truly think that this man would have so much to contribute to the world today if he was still alive. Most of what he is says could be applied to our reality today. But he was the only one who knew the pain he felt inside so I dont judge him at all. But I wish he knew that on the other side of the dark nights of the souls is usually where the treasure is at. RIP DFW

[knotwool]

I NEED silence. I CRAVE silence. My inner thoughts my favorite place to be and the outside world is a huge distraction. I avoid noisy places as much as possible because they trouble my soul.