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
What this quote means
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.
Themes
AuthenticityVulnerabilityWritingHuman ConnectionArtistry
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the importance of authenticity in art.
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
Similar quotes
True alchemy lies in this formula: ‘Your memory and your senses are but the nourishment of your creative impulse’.
Arthur RimbaudRead
The slightest thing can ruin a scene, but you must be willing to take chances.
William WylerRead
Underwater, I experience space with my body. I'll see a school of fish gathering and moving together and I'll exclaim, 'This is architecture.'
Antoine PredockRead
Bullfighting is the only art in which the artist is in danger of death and in which the degree of brilliance in the performance is left to the fighter's honor.
Ernest HemingwayRead
I prefer the absurdity of writing poems to the absurdity of not writing poems.
Wislawa SzymborskaRead
A man climbs a mountain because it is there. An artist makes a work of art because it is not there.
Carl AndreRead