Infinite Jest

by David Foster Wallace

Talent is its own expectation, Jim: you either live up to it or it waves a hankie, receding forever. Use it or lose it, he’d say over the newspaper. I’m… I’m just afraid of having a tombstone that says HERE LIES A PROMISING OLD MAN. It’s… potential may be worse than none, Jim.

‘There are no choices without personal freedom, Buckeroo.

Concord’s John L. has a huge hanging gut and just no ass at all, the way some big older guys’ asses seem to get sucked into their body and reappear out front as gut.

He heard conversing people in the hall passing the open door and stopping for a second to look in, but still conversing. It occurred to him if he died everybody would still exist and go home and eat and X their wife and go to sleep.