# Quote — Don DeLillo, White Noise

> "Our pretense is a dedication. Someone must appear to believe. Our lives are no less serious than if we professed real faith, real belief. As belief shrinks from the world, it is more necessary than ever that someone believe. Wild-eyed men in caves. Nuns in black. Monks who do not speak. We are left to believe. Fools, children. Those who have abandoned belief must still believe in us. They are sure they are right not to believe but they know belief must not fade completely. Hell is when no one believes..."

- Author: [Don DeLillo](https://www.leafyquotes.com/don-delillo.md)
- Book: [White Noise](https://www.leafyquotes.com/don-delillo/white-noise.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/White_Noise_(novel)#General) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/don-delillo/white-noise/our-pretense-is-a-dedication

## More from this book

> No sense of the irony of human experience, that we are the highest form of life on earth, and yet ineffably sad because we know what no other animal knows, that we must die.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/don-delillo/white-noise/no-sense-of-the.md)

> The family is the cradle of the world’s misinformation. There must be something in family life that generates factual error. Over-closeness, the noise and heat of being. Perhaps even something deeper like the need to survive. Murray says we are fragile creatures surrounded by a world of hostile facts. Facts threaten our happiness and security. The deeper we delve into things, the looser our structure may seem to become. The family process works towards sealing off the world. Small errors grow heads, fictions proliferate. I tell Murray that ignorance and confusion can’t possibly be the driving forces behind family solidarity. What an idea, what a subversion. He asks me why the strongest family units exist in the least developed societies. Not to know is a weapon of survival, he says. Magic and superstition become entrenched as the powerful orthodoxy of the clan. The family is strongest where objective reality is most likely to be misinterpreted. What a heartless theory, I say. But Murray insists it’s true.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/don-delillo/white-noise/the-family-is-the-cradle.md)

> California deserves whatever it gets. Californians invented the concept of life-style. This alone warrants their doom.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/don-delillo/white-noise/california-deserves-whatever.md)