238 Quotes by Denis Johnson

But I was in a little better physical shape every day, I was getting my looks back, and my spirits were rising, and this was all in all a happy time for me. All these weirdos, and me getting a little better every day right in the midst of them. I have never known, never even imagined for a heartbeat, that there might be a place for people like us.

It was raining. Gigantic ferns leaned over us. The forest drifted down a hill. I could hear a creek rushing down among the rocks. And you, you ridiculous people, you expect me to help you.

We live in the post-trash, man. It'll be a real short eon. Down in the ectoplasmic circuitry where humanity's leaders are all linked up unconsciously with each other and with the masses, man, there's been this unanimous worldwide decision to trash the planet and get on to a new one.

She looked up out of her voice and saw the angel.…and the entire message had no words. The entire message will be only the beat and direction of time. Yes is Now.The angel who says, “It’s time.”“Is it time?” she asked. “Does it hurt?” He will have the most beautiful face she has ever seen.“Oh, babe.” The angel starts to cry. “You can’t imagine,” he said.

It was all right to be who he was, but others would probably think it was terrible. A couple of times in the past he'd reached this absolute zero of the truth, and without fear or bitterness he realized now that somewhere inside it there was a move he could make to change his life, to become another person, but he'd never be able to guess what it was.

When we were arguing on my twenty-fourth birthday, she left the kitchen, came back with a pistol, and fired it at me five times from right across the table. But she missed. It wasn't my life she was after. It was more. 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.

To English it was amazing how a song will take a whole confused epoch in your life, and fashion it into something sharp and elegant with which to pierce your neck.

The sky was a bruised red shot with black, almost exactly the colors of a tattoo. Sunset had two minutes left to live.

The Americans won't win. They're not fighting for their homeland. They just want to be good. In order to be good, they just have to fight awhile and then leave.