Who would have thought something that happened that long ago could have such power?
There was one thing my murderer didn’t understand; he didn’t understand how much a father could love his child.
In this deeply nuanced portrait of an American family, Bret Anthony Johnston fearlessly explores the truth behind a mythic happy ending. In Remember Me Like This, Johnston presents an incisive dismantling of an all-too-comforting fallacy: that in being found we are no longer lost.
I’m just a friendly bystander who they occasionally ask questions of. That’s my level of involvement.
I was like I was in science class: I was curious.
I have never been shy about listening to the input of others and weighing it seriously.
I’m fine with whatever comes my way, and whatever doesn’t come my way I’m fine with too. I have a very laissez-faire attitude with the whole thing.
Part of the creative process for me is an invitation for readers to follow their imagination.
Each time I told my story, I lost a bit, the smallest drop of pain.
I had always been in love with him. I counted the lashes of each closed eye. He had been my almost, my might have been, and I did not want to leave him.
I mean, if I went into my closet, I could find a previous draft and try to figure that out, but it takes a long time for me to find the voice to tell a story in. I was working from other points of view for a couple years there.
I wish you all a long and happy life.
For me, heaven would be a lack of alienation. The whole time I was growing up, I felt comfort was inherently evil. I think that, for me, heaven isnt about couches and milk shakes and never having a troubling thought again.
She liked to imagine that when she passed, the world looked after her, but she also knew how anonymous she was. Except when she was at work, no one knew where she was at any time of day and no one waited for her. It was immaculate anonymity.
I missed her then but it was an odd sort of missing because by then, I knew the meaning of forever.
One thing about failing repeatedly: If you’re still doing it after you’ve failed that much, you really mean it.
Life is a perpetual yesterday for us.
What I think was hardest for me to realize was that he had tried each time to stop himself. He had killed animals, taking lesser lives to keep from killing a child.
All you have to do is desire it, and if you desire it enough and understand why – really know – it will come.
I don’t do much public speaking. I did a lot of stuff for Bones, and then ended up having said yes to a lot of things that kept me on the road for a while for that, but then I pretty much stopped. I’m touring for this book, but when the tour is done, that’ll be the end of it.