Quote

I suspect by the time the Beatles were writing the White Album, they didn't go, 'I Wanna Hold Your Hand!' I wanna play that! It's like if somebody asked you to put on the clothes you wore in high school. Well, no. No!

John Darnielle

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

John Darnielle
Age: 57
Born: 1967
Born: March 16
Composer
Musician
Singer-Songwriter
Bloomington
Indiana
Writing
High
Wanna
Time
White
Album
Like
Didn
Albums
Hands
Asked
School
Clothes
Beatles
Wells
Hold
Wore
Well
Somebody
Suspect
Play
Hand
Suspects

More quotes by John Darnielle

Image
There are real teachers out there I don't pretend to have their mantle.
John Darnielle
Image
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
Image
It makes me envious of anybody who can say truly that they don't care what anybody thinks of what they do, because I care a lot about the people who like my stuff.
John Darnielle
Image
The fact that somebody's telling you a story about people who didn't exist doesn't make the experience of the story any less real in your heart and mind.
John Darnielle
Image
I usually kind of can't wait until my records leak. Back in the day, you could give people tapes, but you can't do that anymore, because it would be available to everyone on the planet within an hour.
John Darnielle
Image
There is something fierce and starved about first ideas.
John Darnielle
Image
Conservative forces in the South have a lot of power - almost dynastic - dating back many years.
John Darnielle
Image
People say friends don't destroy one another. What do they know about friends?
John Darnielle
Image
Human beings are selfish by nature. Everything that happens to a child, you immediately grab your own child and say, I will never let that happen to you.
John Darnielle
Image
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
Image
I grew up around some people whose parents toured a lot: tough on the marriage, tough on the kids.
John Darnielle
Image
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
Image
Gender relations are a sad story of men talking trash about women all over the world.
John Darnielle
Image
I make up stories that take place in real space with real people. If I could convert this into a technique for experimental novels, I might really be onto something.
John Darnielle
Image
Literature is a mystical place for me. It's not dry. It's where miracles happen.
John Darnielle
Image
Everybody is in various states of needing to transcend something. I believe in mental health care, but when we call people crazy, we exclude them from our circle.
John Darnielle
Image
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
Image
The reality of having a kid involves day-to-day practicality - not broader philosophical outlooks.
John Darnielle
Image
I don't celebrate milestones and I don't do anniversary editions. It's not my style to reflect on accomplishments.
John Darnielle
Image
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