Quote

I just started writing stuff to kill time on summer evenings. This is why I'm always telling people who ask me what they need to do to succeed to give up, do something else.

John Darnielle

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John Darnielle
Age: 57
Born: 1967
Born: March 16
Composer
Musician
Singer-Songwriter
Bloomington
Indiana
Time
Else
Evening
People
Give
Telling
Need
Summer
Giving
Kill
Needs
Succeed
Writing
Started
Something
Asks
Always
Stuff
Evenings

More quotes by John Darnielle

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There are real teachers out there I don't pretend to have their mantle.
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If my songs are being listened to between any other songs, that is awesome, and I'm glad people are getting something out of them.
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The moment where you know the thing you want is ridiculous and pompous and a terrible thing to want anyway. The direction in which you're headed is not the direction you want to go, yet you're going to head that way a while longer cause that's just the kind of person you are.
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I start writing, pull whatever images happen to occur to me and make up a story, instead of starting with details that are real and I know of and going from there.
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There are stylists I really love. I'm a huge Joan Didion fan - if I wrote something that she might like, then I'd feel very proud. I want the action to move as quickly as it does in A Book of Common Prayer, where one thing bonks right into another very quickly.
John Darnielle
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Conservative forces in the South have a lot of power - almost dynastic - dating back many years.
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A novel is a performance you have to plan.
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My work is more important than I am. I'm just some guy.
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I enjoy hearing people who are good at their instruments and who've found a distinctive voice.
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In wrestling, people just throw each other around, possibly actually bleed, and are still friends in the locker room afterwards. But there's a real glee - a feeling goes up in the arena, especially on non-TV days. If it's just people in a room and somebody starts to bleed, that's very exciting.
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When all my friends insisted that they were feeling jaded, it struck me as an affected pose. To me, everything is always new.
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People talk about songwriting or comedy as creative expression, but life is creative expression. Table-making, even nursing, is extraordinarily creative.
John Darnielle
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Kayfabe is kind of a code. To break kayfabe is to let people know that the punch was not real and that the match was scripted.
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I'll keep making records until I don't have more ideas for records.
John Darnielle
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My son, who sees me almost every day of his life, will look at me and go, I know that dude! I like that dude! It's incredibly affirming.
John Darnielle
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I don't really have any position to complain about my job. Yeah, every job has its moments like, Ah, you know, it's Wednesday. But I'm blessed. I love my work.
John Darnielle
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Do every stupid thing that makes you feel alive.
John Darnielle
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It's easy to follow national politics and weigh in on social media, but if I'm tweeting stuff about Chatham County, no one cares.
John Darnielle
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I don't celebrate milestones and I don't do anniversary editions. It's not my style to reflect on accomplishments.
John Darnielle
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You learn to present dark things without including their ability to harm, treasuring them for what they are.
John Darnielle