I am concentrating docilely on the question why U.S. restrooms always appear to us as infirmaries for public distress, the place to reagain control. - David Foster Wallace

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Engraved portrait of David Foster Wallace, facing right

I am concentrating docilely on the question why U.S. restrooms always appear to us as infirmaries for public distress, the place to reagain control.

English
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About David Foster Wallace

David Foster Wallace (21 February 1962 – 12 September 2008) was an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. His works include The Broom of the System (novel), Infinite Jest (novel), The Girl With Curious Hair (short story collection), Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (short story collection), A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again (essay collection), and the posthumously-published The Pale King (novel) and Both Flesh and Not (essay collection).

Biography information from Wikiquote · Portrait adapted from Wikimedia Commons, Steve Rhodes (CC BY)

Also Known As

Alternative Names: David Wallace

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Additional quotes by David Foster Wallace

I was always either so unreasonably and pointlessly happy that no one place could seem to contain me, or so melancholy, so sick and silly with sadness that there was no place I could stomach the thought of entering. I hated it here. And I have never been as happy as when I was here. And these two things together confront me with the beak and claws of the True.

There are, apparently, persons who are deeply afraid of their own emotions, particularly the painful ones. Grief, regret, sadness. Sadness especially, perhaps. Dolores describes these persons as afraid of obliteration, emotional engulfment. As if something truly and thoroughly felt would have no end or bottom. Would become infinite and engulf them. I am saying that such persons usually have a very fragile sense of themselves as persons. As existing at all,

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