I am the false character that follows the name around.

— Don DeLillo

I'd never felt more human than I did when my mother lay in bed, dying. This was not the frailty of a man who is said to be "only human," subject to a weakness or a vulnerability. This was a wave of sadness and loss that made me understand that I was a man expanded by grief.

— Don DeLillo

I drove all night, northeast, and once again I felt it was literature I had been confronting these past days, the archetypes of the dismal mystery, sons and daughters of the archetypes, images that could not be certain which of two confusions held less terror, their own or what their own might become if it ever faced the truth. I drove at insane speeds.

— Don DeLillo

If you could stretch a given minute, what would you find between its unstuck components? Probably some kind of astral madness. A bleak comprehension of the final size of things.

— Don DeLillo

I have only a bare working knowledge of the human brain, but it's enough to make me proud to be an American.

— Don DeLillo

I like simple men and complicated women.

— Don DeLillo

I'm completely aware of Matisse and what he said, that painters must begin by cutting out their tongues.

— Don DeLillo

In the countryside he heard horns and drums and followed the sound to a temple of granite and marble set in a compound that included shrines and incense stalls, people squatting against the walls, beggars, touts, flower-sellers, those who watch over your shoes for a couple of weightless coins.

— Don DeLillo

I saw a photograph of a wedding conducted by Reverend Moon of the Unification Church. I wanted to understand this event, and the only way to understand it was to write about it.

— Don DeLillo

I slept for four years. I didn't study much of anything. Furthermore, I majored in something called communication arts.

— Don DeLillo