- David Foster Wallace: It may be in the old days what was known as a spiritual crisis: feeling as though every axiom in your life turned out to be false... and there was actually nothing. And that you were nothing. And that it's all a delusion and you're so much better than everybody 'cause you can see how this is just a delusion, and you're so much worse because you can't fucking function.
- David Foster Wallace: I'm not saying watching t.v. is bad, or a waste of your time anymore than - like - masturbation is bad or a waste of your time; it's pleasant little way to spend a few minutes - but if you're doing it 20 times day; if your primary sexual relationship is with your hand - something is wrong...
- David Lipsky: Yeah, except with masturbation at least some action is being performed, right; isn't it that, that's better?
- David Foster Wallace: Ok; you can make me look like a real dick if you print this...
- David Lipsky: [laughs] No, I'm not going to - but if you can, speak into the mike...
- David Foster Wallace: Yes, you're performing muscular movements with your hand as you're jerking off. But what you're really doing, I think, is you're running a movie in your head. You're having a fantasy relationship with somebody who is not real... strictly to stimulate a neurological response. So as the Internet grows in the next 10, 15 years... and virtual reality pornography becomes a reality, we're gonna have to develop some real machinery inside our guts... to turn off pure, unalloyed pleasure. Or, I don't know about you, I'm gonna have to leave the planet. 'Cause the technology is just gonna get better and better. And it's gonna get easier and easier... and more and more convenient and more and more pleasurable... to sit alone with images on a screen... given to us by people who do not love us but want our money. And that's fine in low doses, but if it's the basic main staple of your diet, you're gonna die.
- David Lipsky: Well, come on.
- David Foster Wallace: In a meaningful way, you're going to die.
- David Foster Wallace: Well, I think being shy basically means being self-absorbed to the extent that it makes it difficult to be around other people.
- David Lipsky: [final lines] When I think of this trip, I see David and me in the front seat of his car. We are both so young. He wants something better than he has. I want precisely what he has already. Neither of us knows where our lives are going to go. It smells like chewing tobacco, soda and smoke. And the conversation is the best one I ever had. David thought books existed to stop you from feeling lonely. If I could, I'd say to David that living those days with him reminded me of what life is like, instead of being a relief from it. And I'd tell him it made me feel much less alone.
- David Foster Wallace: There's a thing in the book about how when somebody leaps from a burning skyscraper, it's not that they're not afraid of falling anymore, it's that the alternative is so awful. And so then you're invited to consider what could be so awful that leaping to your death would seem like an escape from it. I don't know if you have any experience with this kind of thing. But it's worse than any kind of physical injury. It may be in the old days what was known as a spiritual crisis: feeling as though every axiom in your life turned out to be false... and there was actually nothing. And that you were nothing. And that it's all a delusion and you're so much better than everybody 'cause you can see how this is just a delusion, and you're so much worse because you can't fucking function. It's really horrible.
- David Foster Wallace: It's so much easier having dogs.
- David Lipsky: Ha, ha - I'm sure.
- David Foster Wallace: I mean, yes, you don't get laid, but you don't have that feeling, like you're hurting their feelings, all the time.
- David Lipsky: Right, right.
- David Foster Wallace: I'd like to emphasise strictly platonic relationship with the dogs.
- David Lipsky: He he; I'll make sure I'll highlight it in the article, sure.
- David Foster Wallace: [as both of them open the car door] You didn't think to write where we parked the car?
- David Lipsky: No, I didn't. Okay? Sorry, I fucked up. I'm a fuck up. Not everybody could be as brilliant as you.
- David Foster Wallace: What is with you?
- David Lipsky: What the fuck is with you?
- David Foster Wallace: ...to be seduced off the path of anything meaningful because of the way our culture is now...
- David Lipsky: Do you wanna have kids?...
- David Foster Wallace: Yeah, I think that writing books is a little like raising children, y'know -you have to be careful; mm; it's ok to take pride in the work, but I think it's bad for someone to want the glory to reflect back on you.
- David Lipsky: I mean, sounds like you're worried about having children.
- David Foster Wallace: I'm not wanna say anymore about that - if that's ok?
- David Foster Wallace: This piece would be so much better if it was just you. Just keep talking, you'll save me a lot of trouble.