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 …

- Denis Johnson

Down the hall came the wife. She was glorious, burning. She didn't know yet that her husband was dead. We knew. That's what gave her such power over …

- Denis Johnson

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

- Denis Johnson

This life is but the childhood of our immortality.

- Denis Johnson

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.

- Denis Johnson

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…

- Denis Johnson

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.

- Denis Johnson

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…

- Denis Johnson

What could be lonelier than trying to communicate?

- Denis Johnson