# Quote — Don DeLillo, The Names

> In this century the writer has carried on a conversation with madness. We might almost say of the twentieth-century writer that he aspires to madness. Some have made it, of course, and they hold special places in our regard. To a writer, madness is a final distillation of self, a final editing down. It's the drowning out of false voices.

- Author: [Don DeLillo](https://www.leafyquotes.com/don-delillo.md)
- Book: [The Names](https://www.leafyquotes.com/don-delillo/the-names.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Don_DeLillo#The_Names_(1982)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/don-delillo/the-names/in-this-century

## More from this book

> If I were a writer, how I would enjoy being told the novel is dead. How liberating to work in the margins, outside a central perception. You are the ghoul of literature. Lovely.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/don-delillo/the-names/if-i-were.md)

> I've come to think of Europe as a hardcover book, America as the paperback version.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/don-delillo/the-names/ive-come-to-think.md)