Had he not taken his own life in 2008, David Foster Wallace would have been 50 years old today. Perhaps, in the prime of his creative life. We’ll never know.

In this 1997 interview with Charlie Rose, Wallace talks about writing, fame, drugs, depression and David Lynch.

A the end of the interview, while discussing his depression, Wallace remarks “I’m not getting ready to jump off a building or anything.” “Anything” happened 11 years later when he hanged himself, leaving a brilliant trail of words behind him and a big hole in the heart of modern literature.