Denis Johnson Quotes

65 quotes in 1181 categories

• I hate two kinds of sentences you hear in workshops, the ones beginning "I really like ..." and the ones beginning "My problem with this…
• After the film it was raining, a light steady rain. Ruthless neon on the wet streets like busted candy.
• Sometimes I heard voices muttering in my head, and a lot of the time the world seemed to smolder around its edges. but I was…
• I think it's silly for anyone to think you could write under the influence, but if they'd like to think that, I'd like to keep…
• I really enjoy writing novels. Its like the ocean. You can just build a boat and take off.
• I didnt finish the stories until we went to the Philippines and I got malaria. I couldnt work and I didnt have any money, but…
• And with each step my heart broke for the person I would never find, the person who'd love me. And then I would remember I…
• There were many moments in the Vine like that one--where you might think today was yesterday, and yesterday was tomorrow, and so on. Because we…
• I was probably 35 when I wrote the first story. The voice is kind of a mix in that it has a young voice, but…
• Write the unpublishable.. .and then publish it.
• What's funny about Jesus' Son is that I never even wrote that book, I just wrote it down. I would tell these stories and people…
• If you write fiction, you're by yourself. There are certain advantages to that in that you don't have to explain anything to anybody. But when…
• If you take a lie and allow your desire for the truth, you'll end up with some truth - not fact, but something that gets…
• All the modern verse plays, they're terrible; they're mostly about the poetry. It's more important that the play is first.
• You're under pressure when you produce facts. You're working with facts in journalism, but you're under all kinds of formal constraints; there are expectations.
• [The doctor] peeked into the trauma room and saw the situation: the clerk - that is, me - standing next to the orderly, Georgie, both…
• There's so much goop inside of us, man," he said, "and it all just wants to get out.
• I feel very privileged to hear how somebody used to run around stickin' people up and stealing cars, and now they're gettin' their life back…
• And you, you ridiculous people, you expect me to help you.
• Sometimes what I wouldn't give to have us sitting in a bar again at 9:00 a.m. telling lies to one another, far from God.

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