Brilliant people never think of the lives they smash, being brilliant.

— Don DeLillo

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

— Don DeLillo

Cities were built to measure time, to remove time from nature. There’s an endless counting down, he said. When you strip away all the surfaces, when you see into it, what’s left is terror. This is the thing that literature was meant to cure.

— Don DeLillo

Doesn't our knowledge of death make life more precious?' What good is a preciousness based on fear and anxiety? It's an anxious quivering thing

— Don DeLillo

Doesn't seem quite real. It's not meaningful. I can't quite imagine myself being 73. That's the age my father was! [Laughter.] How can I be his age? It's weird.

— Don DeLillo

Do you know why I believe in the novel? It’s a democratic shout. Anybody can write a great novel, one great novel, almost any amateur off the street. I believe this, George. Some nameless drudge, some desperado with barely a nurtured dream can sit down and find his voice and luck out and do it. Something so angelic it makes your jaw hang open. The spray of talent, the spray of ideas. One thing unlike another, one voice unlike the next. Ambiguities, contradictions, whispers, hints. And this is what you want to destroy.

— Don DeLillo

Everybody wants to own the end of the world.

— Don DeLillo

Everything was fine, would continue to be fine, would eventually get even better as long as the supermarket did not slip.

— Don DeLillo

Everything was on television last night

— Don DeLillo

Eye contact was a delicate matter. A quarter second of a shared glance was a violation of agreements that made the city operational.

— Don DeLillo