After the film it was raining, a light steady rain. Ruthless neon on the wet streets like busted candy.
Denis JohnsonRead
In my writing, I want to be laid bare as a human being.
Interpretation
The quote expresses a desire for authenticity and vulnerability in writing.
Denis Johnson's quote reveals the profound connection between the writer and their work, emphasizing the importance of presenting oneself genuinely and authentically through one's writing. It highlights the act of exposing one's true self, thoughts, and emotions in art, which resonates with readers and fosters a deeper human connection.
In practice
In a discussion about the importance of authenticity in art.
After the film it was raining, a light steady rain. Ruthless neon on the wet streets like busted candy.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
I'm a storyteller - that's the chief function of a director. And they're moving pictures, let's make 'em move!
Just as music is noise that makes sense, a painting is colour that makes sense, so a story is life that makes sense.
I was kind of thrown into - I didn't expect to do this for a living, being a recording artist. I was just playing music for the fun of it and writing songs. That was kind of my escape, you know, from the humdrum of the world.
And will I like being called a jazz-baby?_x000D_ You will love it.
Reruns are wonderful because it usually indicates that they had something going for them to begin with and that's why you're still looking at them. And in both my shows, The Dick Van Dyke Show and the last one, they were so well written and so good they hold up.
Music is a proud, temperamental mistress. Give her the time and attention she deserves, and she is yours. Slight her and there will come a day when you call and she will not answer. So I began sleeping less to give her the time she needed.
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