David Lipsky Quotes

I think the reason why people behave in an ugly manner is that it's really scary to be alive and to be human, and people are really really afraid. ~ David Lipsky

Books are a social substitute; you read people who, at one level, you'd like to hang out with. [David Foster Wallace]'s writing self
it's most pronounced in his essays
was the best friend you'd ever have, spotting everything, whispering jokes, sweeping you past what was irritating or boring or awful in humane style. ~ David Lipsky

It's just much easier with dogs. You don't get laid; but you also don't get the feeling you're hurting their feelings all the time. ~ David Lipsky

David Foster Wallace: Because I'd like to be the sort of person who can enjoy things at the time instead of having to go back in my head and enjoy them then. ~ David Lipsky

One of the things that writing and speech can do is express what we're thinking one thought at a time. ~ David Lipsky

DFW: I think there are different people on the page than in real life. I do six to eight drafts of everything that I do. Um, I am probably not the smartest writer going. But I also
and I know, OK, this is gonna fit right into the persona
I work really really hard. I'm really
you give me twenty-four hours? If we'd done this interview through the mail? I could be really really really smart. I'm not all that fast. And I'm really self-conscious. And I get confused really easily. When I'm in a room by myself alone, and have enough time, I can be really really smart. And people are different that way. You know what I mean? I may not
I don't think I'm quite as smart, one-on-one with people, when I'm self-conscious, and I'm really really confused. And it's like, My dream would be for you to write this up, and then to send it to me, and I get to rewrite all my quotes to you. Which of course you'll never do ... ~ David Lipsky

David thought books existed to stop you from feeling lonely. ~ David Lipsky

David Foster Wallace: What writers have is a license and also the freedom to sit - to sit, clench their fists, and make themselves be excruciatingly aware of the stuff that we're mostly aware of only on a certain level. And that if the writer does his job right, what he basically does is remind the reader of how smart the reader is. Is to wake the reader up to stuff that the reader's been aware of all the time. And it's not a question of the writer having more capacity than the average person. It's that the writer is willing I think to cut off, cut himself off from certain stuff, and develop ... and just, and think really hard. Which not everybody has the luxury to do. ~ David Lipsky

David (David Foster Wallace) had a caffeine social gift: Her was charmingly, vividly, overwhelmingly awake - he acted on other people like a slug of coffee - so they're the five most sleepless days I every spent with anyone. ~ David Lipsky

David Foster Wallace: We sit around and bitch about how TV has ruined the audience for reading - when really all it's done is given us the really precious gift of making our job harder. ~ David Lipsky

My ambition is to not embarrass myself
which, if you know me, is a pretty serious ambition. ~ David Lipsky

The point of books was to combat loneliness ~ David Lipsky

But the sort of - this confusion of permissions, or this idea that pleasure and comfort are the, are really the ultimate goal and meaning of life. I think we're starting to see a generation die ... on the toxicity of that idea. ~ David Lipsky

Yeah, there's stuff that really good fiction can do that other forms of art can't do as well. And the big thing, the big thing seems to be, sort of leapin' over that wall of self, and portraying inner experience. And setting up, I think, a kind of intimate conversation between two consciences. ~ David Lipsky

David Foster Wallace: I think one of the insidious lessons about TV is the meta-lesson that you're dumb. This is all you can do. This is easy, and you're the sort of person who really just wants to sit in a chair and have it easy. When in fact there are parts of us, in a way, that are a lot more ambitious than that. And what we need, I think - and I'm not saying I'm the person to do it. But I think what we need is seriously engaged art, that can teach again that we're smart. And that there's stuff that TV and movies - although they're great at certain things - cannot give us. ~ David Lipsky

He [David Foster Wallace] compares raising children to raising books, you should take pride in the work you do inside a family and not from how they make out in the world. "It's good to want a child to do well, but it's bad to want that glory to reflect back on you," is what he says. ~ David Lipsky

I wanted to earn a living wage and to see something nice about me in the 'New York Times.' I wanted my mother to be proud. I wanted all the things you want and also feel silly for wanting. I wanted readers to say they'd enjoyed something of mine - to see my photo in magazines where I'd seen photos of other writers. ~ David Lipsky

Because we're gonna get so interested in entertainment that we're not gonna want to do the work that generates the income that buys the products that pays for the advertising that disseminates the entertainment. ~ David Lipsky

This was the first thing I ever said, "All right, I'm gonna try to do the very best I can." Instead of doing this, "All right, I'll work at like three-quarters speed, and then I can always figure that if I just hadn't been a fuckup, the book coulda been really good." You know that defense system? You write the paper the night before, so if it doesn't get a great grade, you know that it could've been better.
And this worked
I worked as hard as I could on this. And in a weird way, you might think that would make me more nervous about whether people would like it. But there was this weird
you know like when you work out really well, there's this kind of tiredness that's real pleasant, and it's sort of placid. ~ David Lipsky

[We do some TV talk. He loves Seinfeld, thinks Friends is a little gooey. ~ David Lipsky

And I think that the ultimate way you and I get lucky is if you have some success early in life, you get to find out early it doesn't mean anything. Which means you get to start early the work of figuring out what does mean something
David Foster Wallace ~ David Lipsky

I'm talking about the number of privileged, highly intelligent, motivated career-track people that I know, from my high school or college, who are, if you look into their eyes, empty and miserable. ~ David Lipsky

The way to finish the book is to turn down the volume on the stuff that's all about how other people react. ~ David Lipsky

I'm moved by a lot of different kinds of music, whether it's pop music or R&B or straight-ahead jazz or free or opera or music from all parts of the world. ~ David Sanborn

He wraps an arm around me, and I swear we were once a single unit, a supercontinent divided millions of years ago - like my fifth grade science project - now reunited into some kaleidoscopic New Pangea. "I'm Madagascar," I say, sleepily. "You're what?" "I'm Madagascar. And you're Africa." He squeezes my shoulder, and - I think he gets it. I bet he does. ~ David Arnold

For Augustine, that's the crucial change. Knowledge is not enough for tranquillity and goodness, because it doesn't contain the motivation to be good. Only love impels action. We don't become better because we acquire new information. We become better because we acquire better loves. ~ David Brooks

The older you get, the wiser you are - this is true. But you also question what use this wisdom is.y ~ David Levithan

Take risks. Ask big questions. Don't be afraid to make mistakes; if you don't make mistakes, you're not reaching far enough. ~ David Packard

Tends to put us before the television and its one-way window ~ David Foster Wallace

Many of the most obvious conflicts between science and religion involve timing issues - the dating of events in Earth's history. Bible chronologies typically list Adam and Eve at about 4,000 BC. In contrast, science textbooks can hardly be found that do not refer to human or "pre-human" remains 10,000 to millions of years old. Why the discrepancy? ~ David Barker

Loyalty is the Tory's secret weapon. ~ David Maxwell Fyfe, 1st Earl Of Kilmuir

God is the light shining in the midst of darkness, not to deny that there is darkness in the world but to reassure us that we do not have to be afraid of the darkness because darkness will always yield to light. As theologian David Griffin puts in, God is all-powerful, His power enables people to deal with events beyond their control and He gives us the strength to do those things because He is with us. ~ Harold S. Kushner

Like most things, and most people, it's not as bad as it looks from the outside. ~ Gregory David Roberts

Nothing of real worth can ever be bought. Love, friendship, honour, valour, respect. All these things have to be earned. ~ David Gemmell

When you're meeting a whole lot of new people and having to do things you're in - I'm in a constant low-level state of anxiety. Which produces adrenaline, and kind of shuts down - there's a difference between short-term, people-based anxiety. And sort of deep, existential, you know, fear, that you feel all the way down to your butthole. And that, I, that's ... that's what I'll have when I'm alone. ~ David Foster Wallace

I wake up thinking of yesterday. The joy is in remembering; the pain is in knowing it was yesterday. ~ David Levithan

God is unlimited and infinite with respect to time; He is eternal. God is unlimited and unaffected by space; He is present everywhere at the same time. ~ David Jeremiah

Environmentalism has failed. ~ David Suzuki

The future will use and dispose of the memories of people that we knew as history sees fit. ~ David Eisenhower

Early Muslim references to dehumanization were overtly ethnocentric. Almost without exception, the people who are transformed into subhuman creatures - specifically, pigs, apes, and rats - are Jews. ~ David Livingstone Smith

This is the good news of the gospel. Peace came. Peace lived. Peace died. Peace rose again. Peace reigns on your behalf. Peace indwells you by the Spirit. Peace graces you with everything you need. Peace convicts, forgives, and delivers you. Peace will finish his work in you. Peace will welcome you into glory, where Peace will live with you in peace and righteousness forever. Peace isn't a faded dream. No, Peace is real. Peace is a person, and his name is Jesus. ~ Paul David Tripp

Coagulate, v.: It is a dangerous thing, this thickening of affection; you want it to have weight, but not to be an immovable burden. ~ David Levithan

Desperation is a great giver of clarity: Bartimaeus needed no time to decide what to do next. "Jesus! Son of David!" he shouted. "Have mercy on me!" (Mark 10:47). The crowd turned to him in disgust. "Shut your mouth, son of filth!" But Bartimaeus knew what it meant to be despised. He also knew that the chance of a lifetime was literally passing him by, so he called to the Savior all the louder. (From: Bartimaeus) ~ Sherri Gragg

I don't approve of sunbathing, and it's bad for you. ~ David Attenborough

We have the fact we sell out every week to 67,500 and hopefully 75,000 in the future. We have a lot of assets. ~ David Gill

Global warming is the foreboding thunder in the distance. Ocean acidification is the lightning strike in our front yard, right here, right now. ~ David Horsey

I longed to be a flame of fire continually glowing in the divine service and building up of Christ's kingdom to my last and dying breath. ~ David Brainerd

I don't think that digital technology will ever take away the humanity of storytelling, because storytelling is entirely, in and of itself, a wholly human concern. ~ David Fincher

Style is the art of getting yourself out of the way, not putting yourself in it. ~ David Hare

So, it was done, the break was made, in words at least: on July 2, 1776, in Philadelphia, the American colonies declared independence. If not all thirteen clocks had struck as one, twelve had, and with the other silent, the effect was the same.
It was John Adams, more than anyone, who had made it happen. Further, he seems to have understood more clearly than any what a momentous day it was and in the privacy of two long letters to Abigail, he poured out his feelings as did no one else:
The second day of July 1776 will be the most memorable epocha in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the Day of Deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other from this time forward forever more. ~ David McCullough

But, I would always be thinking of how pictures are constructed and colour, how to use it, I mean you're using it for constructing, makes you think about it, the place did as well. ~ David Hockney

Life is not all high emotion. Some of the most interesting things are when its not highly emotional: little details of relationships and body language. ~ David Attenborough

Mystery is the number one conjurer of ideas. ~ David Lynch

It is equally impossible to forget our Friends, and to make them answer to our ideal. When they say farewell, then indeed we beginto keep them company. How often we find ourselves turning our backs on our actual Friends, that we may go and meet their ideal cousins. ~ Henry David Thoreau

There is actually a fair amount of money being put behind science today. ~ David Baltimore

There's no new news, just old news with new dates ~ Henry David Thoreau

People only rooted for the underdog in movies, not in middle school. ~ David Wright

Tomorrow and tomorrow come creeping in and always will. We're fools trapped in a mechanism of our own unconscious making. Shadows strutting and fretting for one brief hour upon a stage, then heard no more. I'll weep an ocean in my heart, if the world would give me time. But not now. ~ David Hewson

Let's keep people with weird religious faiths out of government. Especially those who have a weird religious faith IN government. ~ David Burge

History has neither the venerableness of antiquity, nor the freshness of the modern. It does as if it would go to the beginning ofthings, which natural history might with reason assume to do; but consider the Universal History, and then tell us,
when did burdock and plantain sprout first? ~ Henry David Thoreau

I avoid clients for whom advertising is only a marginal factor in their marketing mix. They have an awkward tendency to raid their advertising appropriations whenever they need cash for other purposes. ~ David Ogilvy

In my dream world gay people in America would get the right to marry, and not a one of them would use that right. ~ David Sedaris

I can't go anywhere without being recognized. I'm. ~ David Schwimmer

And it's true, I have a perfectly fine face, eyes that may well be 'kind' but are also the brownest of browns, a reasonable-sized nose and the kind of smile that causes photographs to be thrown away. ~ David Nicholls

Obama liberals, in their incalculable arrogance, believe they are smart enough to defy everything we know about human nature, economics and history by insisting on separating financial efforts from rewards and pretending this can bring prosperity. ~ David Limbaugh

platform would look, well, abandoned. Not a ~ David Baldacci

The only people who have anything to fear from free software are those whose products are worth even less. ~ David F. Emery

In Lincoln's day a President's religion was a very private affair. There were no public prayer meetings, no attempts to woo the Religious Right. Few of Lincoln's countrymen knew anything at all of his religious beliefs. ~ David Herbert Donald

Every sincere prayer is heard and answered by our Heavenly Father, but the answers we receive may not be what we expect or come to us when we want or in the way we anticipate. ~ David A. Bednar

Make life an art rather than art from life. ~ David Gilmour

It must be hard to be a female in a David Mackenzie movie. I feel like women in his films are portrayed a certain way - like broken people. ~ Jamie Bell

Christ died to save this lost world; he did not come to destroy, maim or pour out wrath. ~ David Wilkerson