The Marginalian
The Marginalian

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Endnotes: A David Foster Wallace BBC Documentary
Endnotes: A David Foster Wallace BBC Documentary

Taking a master class in artistic bravery, or how to honor the work of a literary lion.

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O Captain! My Captain! David Foster Wallace, Robin Williams, Walt Whitman, and the Unholy Ghost of Suicide
O Captain! My Captain! David Foster Wallace, Robin Williams, Walt Whitman, and the Unholy Ghost of Suicide

“My Captain does not answer … he has no pulse nor will.”

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Words David Foster Wallace’s Mom Invented
Words David Foster Wallace’s Mom Invented

Because language is a living organism and creativity the sum total of our life experience.

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Pixar Cofounder Ed Catmull on Failure and Why Fostering a Fearless Culture Is the Key to Groundbreaking Creative Work
Pixar Cofounder Ed Catmull on Failure and Why Fostering a Fearless Culture Is the Key to Groundbreaking Creative Work

Why the greatest enemy of creative success is the attempt to fortify against failure.

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The Two Objects of the Good Life: Mary Shelley’s Father on the Relationship Between Personal Happiness, Imagination, and Social Harmony
The Two Objects of the Good Life: Mary Shelley’s Father on the Relationship Between Personal Happiness, Imagination, and Social Harmony

“The true object of education, like that of every other moral process, is the generation of happiness. Happiness to the individual in the first place. If individuals were universally happy, the species would be happy.”

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Reinventing the Secular Sermon: Remarkable Commencement Addresses by Nora Ephron, David Foster Wallace, Ira Glass, and More
Reinventing the Secular Sermon: Remarkable Commencement Addresses by Nora Ephron, David Foster Wallace, Ira Glass, and More

How to live life “on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down.”

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David Foster Wallace’s Timeless Graduation Speech on the Meaning of Life, Adapted in a Short Film
David Foster Wallace’s Timeless Graduation Speech on the Meaning of Life, Adapted in a Short Film

“The real value of a real education … has almost nothing to do with knowledge and everything to do with simple awareness.”

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3 Ways to Visualize the David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest
3 Ways to Visualize the David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest

What dotted lines have to do with telenovelas, pop culture reverence and analog GPS.

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Loving the Tree of Life: Annie Dillard on How to Bear Your Mortality
Loving the Tree of Life: Annie Dillard on How to Bear Your Mortality

“We live and move by splitting the light of the present, as a canoe’s bow parts water.”

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Octavia Butler on How (Not) to Choose Our Leaders
Octavia Butler on How (Not) to Choose Our Leaders

“To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears. To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool.”

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