Don DeLillo Quotes

Why are there beings at all, instead of Nothing?

One thing he discovered with a great deal of astonishment was that music held for him more then just pleasure. There was meat to it. The grouping of sounds, their forms in the air as they rang out and faded, said something comforting to him about the rule of Creation. What the music said was that there is a right way for things to be ordered so that life might not always be just tangle and drift, but have a shape, an aim. It was a powerful argument that life did not just happen.

What is the real question is not whether to be, but how to be?

I want to know why the universe exists, why there is something greater than nothing.

In the beginning, there was noise. Noise begat rhythm, and rhythm begat everything else.

Life is essentially a question of values.

Science may eventually explain the world of How. The ultimate world of Why may remain for contemplation, philosophy, religion.

The thing that is incredible is life itself. Why should we be here in this sun-illuminated universe? Why should there be green earth under our feet?

It is only in the light of the inescapable fact of death that a person can adequately engage and enter upon the mysterious fact of life.

There is no means of proving it is preferable to be than not to be.

When you think of it, really there are four fundamental questions of life. You've asked them, I've asked them, every thinking person asks them. They boil down to this; origin, meaning, morality and destiny. 'How did I come into being? What brings life meaning? How do I know right from wrong? Where am I headed after I die?'

The fact we exist merely means we exist. That's all it means.

The greatest mystery of existence is existence itself.

Being is the great explainer.

Life is a prize, but to live doesn't mean you're alive

The purpose of life is life.

I don't know how one should live - but I know that one should live.

Either things happen for a reason, or they happen for no reason at all. Either one's life is a thread in a glorious tapestry or humanity is just a hopelessly tangled knot.

[F]or academic men to be happy, the universe would have to take shape. All of philosophy has no other goal: it is a matter of giving a frock coat to what is, a mathematical frock coat. On the other hand, affirming that the universe resembles nothing and is only formless amounts to saying that the universe is something like a spider or spit.

Being is born of not being.

The world exists, not for what it means but for what it is. The purpose of mushrooms is to be mushrooms, wine is in order to be wine: things are precious before they are contributory. It is a false piety that walks through creation looking only for lessons which can be applied somewhere else. To be sure, God remains the greatest good; but, for all that, the world is still good in itself. Indeed, since He does not need it, its whole reason for being must lie in its own natural goodness; He has no use for it, only delight.

Well, what I don't get is why do we exist? I don't mean how, but why.' I watched the fireflies of his thoughts orbit his head. He said, 'we exist because we exist. . .we could imagine all sorts of universes like this one, but this is the one that happened.

Life's objective is life itself.

Time was invented by the Almighty God in order to give ideas a chance.

Why is there anything at all rather than nothing whatsoever?