Quotes from Denis Johnson

under Midwestern clouds like great grey brains

we heard music coming from inside — jazz. It sounded sophisticated and lonely.

It was a long, narrow place, like a train car that wasn't going anywhere.

Because we all believed we were tragic, and we drank. We had that helpless, destined feeling.

Pointless labor, useless trash, but for the bureaucrat nothing's trash until he affronts his soul by throwing it out.

It was a long straight road through dry fields as far as a person could see. You'd think the sky didn't have any air in it, and the earth was made of paper. Rather than moving, we were just getting smaller and smaller.

The Vine was like a railroad club car that had somehow run itself off the tracks into a swamp of time where it awaited the blows of the wrecking ball.

But every time I entered the place there were veiled faces promising everything and then clarifying quickly into the dull, the usual, looking up at me and making the same mistake.

The road we were lost on cut straight through the middle of the world. It was still daytime, but the sun had no more power than an ornament or a sponge.

we parked under a strange sky with a faint image of a quarter-moon super imposed on it.

and the angels were descending out of a brilliant blue summer, their huge faces streaked with light and full of pity. The sight of them cut through my heart and down the knuckles of my spine.

We hadn't yet mentioned our names. We probably wouldn't. In barrooms I lived this over and over.

The sun lowered itself through the roof of clouds, ignited the sea, and filled the big picture window with molten light, so that we did our dealing and dreaming in a brilliant fog.

Sands vanquished a rush of fear and said emphatically, "I'm your man, sir." "Get in there. Have intercourse with snakes. Eat human flesh. Learn everything." "That's pretty broad.

They ran a few syringesful into me, and I felt like I'd turned from a light, Styrofoam thing into a person. I held up my hands before my eyes. The hands were as still as a sculpture's.

The appeal was obvious, the cleanly geometry, the assurances of physical ballistics, the organic richness of the wooden lanes and the mute servitude of the machines that raised the pins and swept away the fallen, above all the powerlessness and suspense, the ball held, the ball directed, the ball traveling away like a son, beyond hope of influence. A slow, large, powerful game. Sands

Life after death, ghosts, Paradise, eternity--of course, we take all that as granted. Otherwise where's the fun?

No more pretending for him! He was completely and openly a mess. Meanwhile the rest of us go on trying to fool each other.

Well, I said, if the saints think reincarnation's a game worth playing ... Mark said: I mean, sure, something's happening over and over, but what? Maybe it's just the breath in and out of our lungs. I pointed out we didn't need a metaphor for breathing—You just talked about it quite literally.

That night I sat in a booth across from Kid Williams, a former boxer. His black hands were lumpy and mutilated. I always had the feeling he might suddenly reach out his hands and strangle me to death. He spoke in two voices. He was in his fifties. He'd wasted his entire life. Such people were very dear to those of us who'd wasted only a few years.

I knew him, this John Smith. Once at a party he tried to sell me a gun, and later at the same party he made everyone quiet down for a few minutes because I was singing along with the radio, and he liked my voice.

People would talk about it, and I hoped I would be liked.

We made love in the bed, ate steaks at the restaurant, shot up in the john, puked, cried, accused one another, begged of one another, forgave, promised, and carried one another to heaven.