After the film it was raining, a light steady rain. Ruthless neon on the wet streets like busted candy.
Denis JohnsonRead
Sometimes I heard voices muttering in my head, and a lot of the time the world seemed to smolder around its edges. 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 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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects on personal recovery and finding a sense of belonging amidst chaos.
In this quote, the author describes a transformative period in their life where, despite experiencing mental turmoil and surrounding chaos, they began to notice positive changes in their physical and emotional well-being. It suggests that even in difficult circumstances, one can find joy and a sense of community, highlighting the importance of resilience and the human connection among those who feel different or marginalized.
Themes
RecoveryBelongingResilienceTransformationHope
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used to inspire those who feel out of place in social settings.
More from Denis Johnson
All quotes →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.
Denis JohnsonRead
Through this feeling of helplessness suddenly burst a piercing nostalgia for the lost world of childhood. The way it came right up against the heart, that world, and against the face. No indoors or outdoors, only everything touching us, and the grown-ups lumbering past overhead like constellations.
Denis JohnsonRead
If you write fiction, you're by yourself. There are certain advantages to that in that you don't have to explain anything to anybody. But when you get in with others who share the loneliness of the whole enterprise, you're not lonely anymore.
Denis JohnsonRead
Before this moment I'd lived as a mind. Body, heart, soul, intellect, so we care ourselves into parts. But the whole of us, what can it be?
Denis JohnsonRead
The traveling salesmen fed me pills that made the lining of my veins feel scraped out, my jaw ached... I knew every raindrop by its name, I sensed everything before it happened. Like I knew a certain oldsmobile would stop even before it slowed, and by the sweet voices of the family inside, I knew we'd have an accident in the rain. I didn't care. They said they'd take me all the way.
Denis JohnsonRead
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