"It’s gonna get easier and easier, and more and more convenient, and more and more pleasurable, to be alone with images on a screen... Which is all right. In low doses, right? but if that’s the basic main staple of your diet, you’re gonna die." - David Foster Wallace in 1996

Nov 6, 2025 · 6:07 PM UTC

4
29
1
152
The prescience is amazing
3
13
69
thenewinquiry.com/excerpts-f…

Excerpts from a Conversation with David Foster Wallace

There are four trillion bits coming at you, 99 percent of them are shit, and it’s too much work to do triage to decide.

thenewinquiry.com
1
1
14
Replying to @j_amesmarriott @irwinlomnos
DFW, per some of his very early essays, watched an enormous amount of television, and so, yes, he well knew what he was talking about. One has to wonder if this contributed to his own problems.
Replying to @j_amesmarriott
along with others who are aged, yes, I spend a lot of my time alone with images on a screen. It's fact of life once you reach a certain age, are single and most of your friends have slipped off this mortal coil. But no, I'm not waiting to die. Every day I wake is a bonus!
1
Replying to @j_amesmarriott
"die" does a lot of work in that passage.
1
Load more