David Foster Wallace Quotes

A man's own dinner is to himself so important that he cannot bring himself to believe that it is a matter utterly indifferent to anyone else.

No man thinks there is much ado about nothing when the ado is about himself.

People see themselves as the center of the universe and judge everything as it relates to them.

I think; therefore, I am the center of the universe.

It is a form of arrogance to assume that other people are even thinking about you.

Everyone thinks they're the hero in their own story.

None of us exist in a world that is the same world that any of the rest of us live in. The world that's important is the world behind each of our eyes, which is something that none of the rest of us can access.

Each of us, deep down, believes that the whole world issues from his own precious body, like images projected from a tiny slide onto an earth-sized screen. And then, deeper down, each of us knows he's wrong.

Dad's Theory of Arrogance--that everyone always assumes they're the Principal Character of Desire and/or Loathing in everybody else's Broadway Play.

Does the universe exist only for me? It's possible. If so, it's sure going well for me, I must admit.

What's wrong with this egotism? If a man doesn't delight in himself and the force in him and feel that he and it are wonders, how is all life to become important to him?

I know it's very egocentric to believe that someone is put on Earth for a reason. In my case, I like to think I was.

It seemed clear to me that life and the world somehow depended upon me now. I may almost say that the world now seemed created for me alone: if I shot myself the world would cease to be at least for me. I say nothing of its being likely that nothing will exist for anyone when I am gone, and that as soon as my consciousness is extinguished the whole world will vanish too and become void like a phantom , as a mere appurtenance of my consciousness, for possibly all this world and all these people are only me myself.

Elena had always felt like the center of her own world - who doesn't? The world arranged itself around her like petals around the stem of a flower. This way the meadows, that way the woodland. Over here, the baryn's estate, out there, the hills that hug the known world close and imply a world at beyond. She could never come up with the edge of a world, because it always kept going on beyond. She moved the center of the world as she walked. The world was balanced on her head.

When you're a child you're the center of everything. Everything happens for you. Other people? They're only ghosts furnished for you to talk to.

Among other pleasing errors of young minds is the opinion of their own importance. He that has not yet remarked, how little attention his contemporaries can spare from themselves, conceives all eyes turned upon himself, and imagines everyone that approaches him to be an enemy or a follower, an admirer or a spy.

A man is himself important precisely in proportion that all things seem important to him.

Your first realization when you become an important person is that all day and all night, whatever the circumstances, people want to hear you talk about yourself.

In the light of our egos, we are all dethroned monarchs

Egocentrics are attracted to the inept. It gives them one more excuse for patting themselves on the back.

People think they know the mystery of living in your skin. They don't. There's no one who knows except the person who carts it around her own self.

You have to remember. . .that for this little boy whom you have met, his life is just as important to him, as your life is to you. No matter how insufficient or how shabby it may seem to some, it is the only one he has.

It is a false principle that because we are entirely occupied with ourselves, we must equally occupy the thoughts of others. The contrary inference is the fair one.

You know, I think that only if one feels immensely important can one feel truly light.

Reality is not so much what happens to us; rather, it is how we think about those events that create the reality we experience. In a very real sense, this means that we each create the reality in which we live.