Top Denis Johnson Quotes - Quotesmemo.com

Denis Johnson Biography

Denis Hale Johnson (July 1, 1949 – May 24, 2017) was an American writer best known for his short story collection Jesus' Son (1992) and his novel Tree of Smoke (2007), which won the National Book Award for Fiction. He also wrote plays, poetry, journalism, and non-fiction.

Read about Denis Johnson in Wikipedia

Random Authors

Denis Johnson Quotes

English words are like prisms. Empty, nothing inside, and still they make rainbows.

Empty, English Words, Like, Nothing, Rainbow, Words

Will you believe me when I tell you there was kindness in his heart? His left hand didn't know what his right hand was doing. It was only that certain important connections had been burned through. If I opened up your head and ran a hot soldering iron around in your brain, I might turn you into someone like that.

Believe, Certain, Heart, Kindness, Know, Ran

It was only when you left it alone that a tree might treat you as a friend. After the blade bit in, you had yourself a war.

Blade, Might, Treat, Tree, War

He got right down in the dark between heartbeats, and rested there. And then he saw that another one wasn't going to come. That's it. That's the last. He looked at the dark. I would like to take this opportunity, he said, to pray for another human being.

Dark, Down, Lasts, Looked, Opportunity

With each step my heart broke for the person I would never find, the person who'd love me.

Broke, Heart, Love, Step, Steps

In my writing, I want to be laid bare as a human being.

Bare, Human, Humans, Laid, Want, Writing

What could be lonelier than trying to communicate?

Communicate, Lonelier, Trying

She wanted to eat my heart and be lost in the desert with what she'd done, she wanted to fall on her knees and give birth from it, she wanted to hurt me as only a child can be hurt by its mother.

Child, Children, Done, Heart, Hurt, Mother

The movie's not over till everybody's dead.

Dead, Till

This wasn't the sea of the inexorable horizon and smashing waves, not the sea of distance and violence, but the sea of the etenally leveling patience and wetness of water. Whether it comes to you in a storm or in a cup, it owns you--we are more water than dust. It is our origin and our destination.

Distance, Dust, Horizon, Patience, Sea, Storm

Death is the mother of beauty.

Beauty, Death, Mother

When he was dry, he believed it was alcohol he needed, but when he had a few drinks in him, he knew it was something else, possibly a woman; and when he had it all -- cash, booze, and a wife -- he couldn't be distracted from the great emptiness that was always falling through him and never hit the ground.

Alcohol, Believed, Distracted, Fall, Wife

She had nothing in this world but her two hands and her crazy love for Jesus, who seemed, for his part, never to have heard of her.

Crazy, Hands, Jesus, World

After the film it was raining, a light steady rain. Ruthless neon on the wet streets like busted candy.

Light, Like, Neon, Rain, Raining, Wet

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.

Bars, Giving, God, Lies, Lying, Sitting

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 it's also someone who's looking back. I like that kind of double vision.

Aerospace, Double Vision, Mix, Probably, Story, Voice

This life is but the childhood of our immortality.

Childhood, Immortality, Life, Life Is

And you, you ridiculous people, you expect me to help you.

Help, Helping, People, Ridiculous

Love and violence-not to conquer one with the other but to live with both, that's what I've learned. Each pulling me a different way. If I relax my struggles they don't tear me in two, but lift me up.

Pulling, Relax, Struggle, Tear, Tears, Two

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 together. . . I just love the stories. The stories of the fallen world, they excite us. That's the interesting stuff.

Car, Hear, People, Run, Running, Somebody

1