David Foster Wallace: One of the things that college drummed into me is, "Welcome to the adult world. It doesn't care about you. You want it to? Make it. Make it care."
Bryan A Garner: So readers are essentially selfish, or at least self-interested, and they need to get something out of the writing. Is that part of it?
David Foster Wallace: I certainly don't talk to students that way. What I talk about is that one of the things that's good about writing and practicing writing is it's a great remedy for my natural self-involvement and self-centeredness. Right? "I am the center of my own world, my thoughts and feelings are more immediate, therefore..." [Students] start realizing that really learning how to write effectively is, in fact, probably more of a matter of spirit than it is of intellect. And the spirit means I never forget there's someone on the end of the line, that I owe that person certain allegiances, that I'm sending that person all kinds of messages, only some of which have to do with the actual content of what it is I'm trying to say.