Don DeLillo

Quotes

1. "You don't believe in heaven? A nun?"

   "If you don't, why should I?"

   "If you did, maybe I would."

   "If I did, you would not have to."

2. 

   “I love Omar, Jack. We all know about men and their insane rage. This is something men are very good at. Insane and violent jealousy. Homicidal rage. When people are good at something, it’s only natural that they look for a chance to do this thing. If I were good at it, I would do it. It happens I’m not. So instead of going into homicidal rages, I read to the blind. In other words I know my limits. I am willing to settle for less.” – Babette.

3. 

   Maybe when we die, the first thing we'll say is, 'I know this feeling. I was here before.'

4. 

   “Once you’ve seen the signs about the barn, it becomes impossible to see the barn…They are taking pictures of taking pictures.” – Murray

5. 

   “I don’t trust anybody’s nostalgia but my own. Nostalgia is a product of dissatisfaction and rage. It’s a settling of grievances between the present and the past. The more powerful the nostalgia, the closer you come to violence. War is the form nostalgia takes when men are hard-pressed to say something good about their country.” – Murray

6. 

   To become a crowd is to keep out death.

7. 

   What we are reluctant to touch often seems the very fabric of our salvation. – Jack

8. 

   All plots tend to move deathwards. This is the nature of plots.

9. 

   “What good is my truth? My truth means nothing.” – Heinrich

10. 

    If the special character of Nyodene Derivative (added to the everyday drift of effluents, pollutants, contaminants and deliriants) had caused this aesthetic leap from already brilliant sunsets to broad towering ruddled visionary skyscapes, tinged with dread, no one had been able to prove it.

11. 

    I feel sad for people and the queer part we play in our own disasters – Jack

12. 

    “The thing about marriage today is you don’t have to go outside the home to get those little extras. You can get whatever you want in the recesses of the American home. These are the times we live in, for better or for worse. Wives will do things. They want to do things. You don’t have to drop the little looks. It used to be the only thing available in the American home was the basic natural act. Now you get the options too. The action is thick, let me tell you. It’s an amazing comment on our times that the more options you get in the home, the more prostitutes you see in the streets. How do you figure it, Jack? You’re the professor. What does it mean?” – Vernon