"There's part of me that wants to get attention and respect. It doesn't
really make very much difference to me. Because I learned in my 20's
that it just doesn't change anything. And that whatever you get paid
attention for is never the stuff that you think is important about
yourself anyway. So a lot of my problems right now is that I don't
really have a brass ring. And I'm kind of open to suggestions as to what
one chases. There are real abstract ideas about, you know, what art can
be, the redemptive quality of art, and you know, kindness to animals.
All the cliches that we can invoke. But ...the people who most interest
me now are the people who are old and who have sort of been through a
midlife criss. They tend to get weird, because the normal incentives
for getting out of bed don't tend to apply anymore. I have not found
any satisfactory new ones. But I'm also not getting ready to jump off a
building or anything."
David Foster Wallace, 3/27/97
