David Foster Wallace Quotes

There is perfection in the process-and all life arises out of choice.

I've always felt that life is a novel, and part of it is written for you, and part of it is written by you. It's up to you to write the ending, ultimately.

You are free to give life meaning, whatever meaning you want to give it.

We are all, right now, living the life we choose.

If we become aware of what's happening before we act, behaviour becomes a function of choice rather than a result of an impulse or trigger. You begin to control your world more as opposed to the outside world controlling you.

We're on some path that's set since we're born, but I still believe we can change some things. So I believe in my faith, but I still don't believe in my fate.

You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't.

Fundamentally, we are a product of choice, not nature (genes) or nurture (upbringing, environment).

However stupid the choice seemed, Shay had made it with her eyes open, and had respected Tally's choice to stay.

Human freedom involves our capacity to pause between the stimulus and response and, in that pause, to choose the one response toward which we wish to throw our weight. The capacity to create ourselves, based upon this freedom, is inseparable from consciousness or self-awareness. (p. 100)

Religion is a self-conferred intellectual decision; it's not something you get at birth and is unchangeable. You're collusive with the religion when you accept it; you have a choice.

That something happened to you is of no importance to anyone, not even to you. The important thing about you is what you choose to make happen - your values and choices. That which happened by accident - what family you were born into, in what country, and where you went to school - is totally unimportant.

Life is nothing until it is lived; but it is yours to make sense of, and the of it is nothing other than the sense you choose.

I think people do have their own minds.

In the space between stimulus (what happens) and how we respond, lies our freedom to choose. Ultimately, this power to choose is what defines us as human beings. We may have limited choices but we can always choose. We can choose our thoughts, emotions, moods, our words, our actions; we can choose our values and live by principles. It is the choice of acting or being acted upon.

We can each sit and wait to die, from the very day of our births. Those of us who do not do so, choose to ask - and to answer - the two questions that define every conscious creature: What do I want? and What will I do to get it? Which are, finally, only one question: What is my will? Caine teaches us that the answer is always found within our own experience; our lives provide the structure of the question, and a properly phrased question contains its own answer.

The world we live in is the world we choose to live in, whether consciously or unconsciously. If we choose bliss, that's what we get. If we choose misery, we get that, too.

Conscious choice is creative. Unconscious choice is destructive. That is how we end up living other people's lives.

We cannot lead a choiceless life. Every day, every moment, every second, there is a choice. If it were not so, we would not be individuals.

You can choose to be a person who has resulted simply from what has happened, or from what you've chosen to be and do about what has happened.

You get to decide what to worship.

You can be smart and happy or stupid and miserable. . . it's your choice

You can do what you will, but in any given moment of your life you can will only one definite thing and absolutely nothing other than that one thing.

All men and women are born, live, suffer and die; what distinguishes us one from another is our dreams, whether they be dreams about worldly or unworldly things, and what we do to make them come about... We do not choose to be born. We do not choose our parents. We do not choose our historical epoch, the country of our birth, or the immediate circumstances of our upbringing. We do not, most of us, choose to die; nor do we choose the time and conditions of our death. But within this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we live.

That which you call your soul or spirit is your consciousness, and that which you call 'free will' is your mind's freedom to think or not, the only will you have, your only freedom, the choice that controls all the choices you make and determines your life and your character.