# Quote — David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

> Hal, who's empty but not dumb, theorizes privately that what passes for hip cynical transcendence of sentiment is really some kind of fear of being really human, since to be really human (at least as he conceptualizes it) is probably to be unavoidably sentimental and naïve and goo-prone and generally pathetic, is to be in some sort of basic interior way forever infantile, some sort of not-quite-right-looking infant dragging itself anclitically around the map, with big wet eyes and froggy-soft skin, huge skull, goey drool. One of the really American things about Hal, probably, is the way he despises what it is he's really lonely for: this hideous internal self, incontinent of sentiment and need, that pules and writhes just under the hip empty mask, anhedonia.

- Author: [David Foster Wallace](https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-foster-wallace.md)
- Book: [Infinite Jest](https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-foster-wallace/infinite-jest.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/David_Foster_Wallace#Infinite_Jest_(1996)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-foster-wallace/infinite-jest/hal-whos-empty

## More from this book

> 'So then at forty-six years of age I came here to learn to live by cliches,' is what Day says to Charlotte Treat right after Randy Lenz asked what time it was, again, at 0825. 'To turn my will and life over to the care of cliches. One day at a time. Easy does it. First things first. Courage is fear that has said its prayers. Ask for help. Thy will not mine be done. It works if you work it. Grow or go. Keep coming back.' [...] I walk around with my arms out straight in front of me and recite these cliches. In a monotone. No inflection necessary. Could that be one? Could that be added to the cliche-pool? "No inflection necessary"? Too many syllables, probably.'

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-foster-wallace/infinite-jest/so-then-at-forty-six.md)

> That you will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-foster-wallace/infinite-jest/that-you-will.md)

> 'You know what your problem is, Hallie?' 'I have just one problem?'

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-foster-wallace/infinite-jest/you-know-what.md)