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This is the funny thing about me. People think John just comes up with all the ideas. I'm honored. People think I have a big old brain, but actually I am the sum of the people I work with.

John Darnielle

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John Darnielle
Age: 57
Born: 1967
Born: March 16
Composer
Musician
Singer-Songwriter
Bloomington
Indiana
Thinking
Actually
People
Funny
Bigs
Comes
Ideas
Thing
Honored
Work
John
Think
Brain

More quotes by 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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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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This is why people cry at the movies: because everybody’s doomed. No one in a movie can help themselves in any way. Their fate has already staked its claim on them from the moment they appear onscreen.
John Darnielle
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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.
John Darnielle
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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.
John Darnielle
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Take dance music: I like enough of it and its history to be able to say a word or two about this or that record, but I'm nobody's authority.
John Darnielle
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People will complain that they don't want to wait around for lightning to strike, but why not? If you invest yourself in chance, the potential for disappointment is pretty low.
John Darnielle
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My work is more important than I am. I'm just some guy.
John Darnielle
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I'm sort of a cavedweller: I miss my house, my yard, my kitchen, my wife. The trees. When I get home, I like to get down into my office neighborhood as soon as I can.
John Darnielle
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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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There is something fierce and starved about first ideas.
John Darnielle
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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.
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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It's impossible to be content all the time - you have to learn to be content in places where you're unhappy and owning your emotions, whatever they are.
John Darnielle
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For me, moving is always a big opportunity. Its just a enough of a shift in outlook that every time I move, it seems to open something up.
John Darnielle
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I consider myself a lyricist first and foremost, but if you get something else out of what I do, that's fine too. I'm not sitting back here telling people how they have to take my stuff. We just want to play music, and hope that people like it.
John Darnielle
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I always worry that I'm a dilettante: I know something about lots of things but don't have exhaustive knowledge of much.
John Darnielle
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I enjoy hearing people who are good at their instruments and who've found a distinctive voice.
John Darnielle
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Young people like to feel self-righteous, like they're on the right side of things.
John Darnielle
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Giving up and doing something else (nursing, for me) was exactly what eventually led me to making music that other people wanted to hear.
John Darnielle