Denis Johnson
Denis Johnson
Denis Hale Johnsonis an American writer best known for his short story collection Jesus' Sonand his novel Tree of Smoke, which won the National Book Award for Fiction. He also writes plays, poetry and non-fiction...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth1 July 1949
CountryGermany
trying communicate
What could be lonelier than trying to communicate?
beautiful born
There was a part of her she hadn’t yet allowed to be born because it was too beautiful for this place
dream real mean
And therefore I looked down into the great pity of a person’s life on this earth. I don’t mean that we all end up dead, that’s not the great pity. I mean that he couldn’t tell me what he was dreaming, and I couldn’t tell him what was real.
rain light neon
After the film it was raining, a light steady rain. Ruthless neon on the wet streets like busted candy.
writing publish
Write the unpublishable.. .and then publish it.
stories four philippines
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 I had seven stories. So I wrote three or four more.
jesus silly writing
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 the legend alive. Maybe I was under the influence when I wrote Jesus' Son and I just didn't know it.
afraid false laughter love playing silences universe
I was afraid to make love to her without the conversations and laughter from the false universe playing in our ears, because I didn't want to get to know her very well, and didn't want to be bridging any silences with our eyes.
begin children dawn drop neighbors radios screams soon start time wind
As soon as the first drop of dawn dilutes the blackness, the neighbors begin their unbelievable racket, first the roosters, then the radios, then the live accompaniment to the radios - and then it's time to wind up the little children and start their screams and tears.
kissing first-kiss world
The first kiss plummeted him down a hole and popped him out into a world he thought he could get along in—as if he’d been pulling hard the wrong way and was now turned around headed downstream.
people littles might
All these weirdos, and me getting a little better every day right in the midst of them. I had never known, never even imagined for a heartbeat, that there might be a place for people like us.
running interesting car
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.
lying giving sitting
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.
distance dust sea
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.