We start our lives in chaos, in babble. As we surge up into the world, we try to devise a shape, a plan. There is dignity in this. Your whole life is a plot, a scheme, a diagram. It is a failed scheme but that's not the point. To plot is to affirm life, to seek shape and control. Even after death, most particularly after death, the search continues. Burial rites are an attempt to complete the scheme, in ritual. Picture a state funeral. It is all precision, detail, order, design. The nation holds its breath. The efforts of a huge and powerful government are brought to bear on a ceremony that will shed the last trace of chaos. If all geos well, if they bring it off, some natural law of perfection is obeyed. The nation is delivered from anxiety, the deceased's life is redeemed, life itself is strengthened, reaffirmed.
More Quotes from Don DeLillo:
In a repressive society, a writer can be deeply influential, but in a society that's filled with glut and repetition and endless consumption, the act of terror may be the only meaningful act.Don DeLillo
Thousands stand and chant. Around them in the world, people ride escalators going up and sneak secret glances at the faces coming down. People dangle teabags over hot water in white cups. Cars run silently on the autobahns, streaks of painted light. People sit at desks and stare at office walls. They smell their shirts and drop them in the hamper. People bind themselves into numbered seats and fly across time zones and high cirrus and deep night, knowing there is something they've forgotten to do.
Don DeLillo
People who are in power make their arrangements in secret, largely as a way of maintaining and furthering that power.
Don DeLillo
When you try to unravel something you've written, you belittle it in a way. It was created as a mystery.
Don DeLillo
True terror is a language and a vision. There is a deep narrative structure to terrorist acts, and they infiltrate and alter consciousness in ways that writers used to aspire to.
Don DeLillo
I watch movies occasionally, and I watch documentaries. Virtually nothing else.
Don DeLillo
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Based on Topics: Death & Dying Quotes, Design Quotes, Efforts Quotes, Government Quotes, Life Quotes, Perfection Quotes, Planning Quotes, World QuotesBased on Keywords: babble, burial, diagram, reaffirmed
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