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" To be willing to sort of die in order to move the reader, somehow. Even now I'm scared about how sappy this'll look in print, saying this. "

David Foster Wallace

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" The other half is to dramatize the fact that we still 'are' human beings, now. Or can be. "

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" This is nourishing, redemptive; we become less alone inside. "

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" I think TV promulgates the idea that good art is just art which makes people like and depend on the vehicle that brings them the art. "

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" The interesting thing is why we're so desperate for this anesthetic against loneliness. "

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" The reader becomes God, for all textual purposes. I see your eyes glazing over, so I'll hush. "

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" Fiction's about what it is to be a human being. "

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" We're not keen on the idea of the story sharing its valence with the reader. But the reader's own life 'outside' the story changes the story. "

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" It can become an exercise in trying to get the reader to like and admire you instead of an exercise in creative art. "

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" This might be one way to start talking about differences between the early postmodern writers of the fifties and sixties and their contemporary descendants. "

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" The great thing about irony is that it splits things apart, gets up above them so we can see the flaws and hypocrisies and duplicates. "

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" The problem is that once the rules of art are debunked, and once the unpleasant realities the irony diagnoses are revealed and diagnosed, 'then' what do we do? "

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

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" This diagnosis can be done in about two lines. It doesn't engage anybody. "

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" Nuclear weapons and TV have simply intensified the consequences of our tendencies, upped the stakes. "

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" For these cultures, getting rid of the pain without addressing the deeper cause would be like shutting off a fire alarm while the fire's still going. "

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" Pleasure becomes a value, a teleological end in itself. It's probably more Western than U.S. per se. "

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" One of the things that makes Wittgenstein a real artist to me is that he realized that no conclusion could be more horrible than solipsism. "

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" TV's 'real' agenda is to be 'liked,' because if you like what you're seeing, you'll stay tuned. TV is completely unabashed about this; it's its sole raison. "

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" Rap's conscious response to the poverty and oppression of U.S. blacks is like some hideous parody of sixties black pride. "

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" What TV is extremely good at - and realize that this is 'all it does' - is discerning what large numbers of people think they want, and supplying it. "

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" We're kind of wishing some parents would come back. And of course we're uneasy about the fact that we wish they'd come back - I mean, what's wrong with us? "

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