# Quote — David Foster Wallace, The Pale King

> "Routine, repetition, tedium, monotony, ephemeracy, inconsequence, abstraction, disorder, boredom, angst, ennui—these are the true hero’s enemies, and make no mistake, they are fearsome indeed. For they are real."

- Author: [David Foster Wallace](https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-foster-wallace.md)
- Book: [The Pale King](https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-foster-wallace/the-pale-king.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/David_Foster_Wallace#The_Pale_King_(2011)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-foster-wallace/the-pale-king/routine-repetition-tedium

## More from this book

> Every love story is a ghost story.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-foster-wallace/the-pale-king/every-love-story.md)

> The next suitable person you’re in light conversation with, you stop suddenly in the middle of the conversation and look at the person closely and say, “What’s wrong?” You say it in a concerned way. He’ll say, “What do you mean?” You say, “Something’s wrong. I can tell. What is it?” And he’ll look stunned and say, “How did you know?” He doesn’t realize something’s always wrong, with everybody. Often more than one thing. He doesn’t know everybody’s always going around all the time with something wrong and believing they’re exerting great willpower and control to keep other people, for whom they think nothing’s ever wrong, from seeing it.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-foster-wallace/the-pale-king/the-next-suitable.md)

> Since we all breathe, all the time, it is amazing what happens when someone else directs you how and when to breathe. And how vividly someone with no imagination whatsoever can see what he’s told is right there, complete with banister and rubber runners, curving down and rightward into a darkness that recedes before you.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-foster-wallace/the-pale-king/since-we-all.md)