They always arrive at the same questions – why don’t these young people care? how did they get like this? where were their parents? – but the asking of these questions is an exercise in self-portraiture. They’re not good questions; they’re not even questions. They’re ghost stories masquerading as concern.

— John Darnielle

John Darnielle Quotes

There is no identifiable accent here unless you’ve cultivated a very careful ear. This is an easy place to live, milder in feel than Nebraska to the west, negligibly warmer in the winter than Minnesota to the north, of less imagined consequence to the world than Illinois to the east or Missouri to the south.

— John Darnielle

People bring you books, cheap paperbacks, when you’re in the hospital: this was how I found out that I hate mystery novels.

— John Darnielle

I didn’t have a whole lot of friends anyway, so I didn’t feel abandoned so much as reminded.

— John Darnielle

It’s hard to describe, this feeling of seeing your kids spending time together like adults, meeting up again after being out there in the world like free agents. There’s something giddy and unreal about it. I knew that boy when he was afraid of strangers. I knew them both before they knew how to talk.

— John Darnielle

It is a terrible thing to feel trapped within a movie whose plot twists are senseless.

— John Darnielle

Still, picture the noble snake, having molted, slithering away, newly glistening. There’s the skin, in a big disorganized pile behind it. Is the snake asking you to notice that a snake was here earlier? No; the snake doesn’t care one way or the other. It has moved on. No, indeed, you can’t call a snake sloppy or careless or fault it for leaving tracks in its wake. Besides, who are you? Snakes have been here for millions of years.

— John Darnielle

Another nagging little question lodged like a bit of grapeshot in his chest. It was nothing major, but the place where he stored them all was running out of room.

— John Darnielle

But few things, at any rate, are more powerful than expectations. Blunt force, maybe. Firepower, certainly. Sword and steel. But even those have their limits. The imagination has none.

— John Darnielle

There is, among the public, a perennial urge to believe the worst about the generation that will eventually replace them.

— John Darnielle

The past is charming and safe when you’re skittering around on its surface. It’s a nice place to linger a moment before seeking the lower depths.

— John Darnielle

I remember before I finally fell asleep feeling like there wasn’t all that much to say about my life. I’d had several satisfying relationships, they hadn’t amounted to much. I’d gotten better at my work and been rewarded for it, but I sometimes felt like life had run out of surprises for me. I did what I did and got the results I expected. I kept up my practice and it paid my way. My wheels made an agreeable noise when they spun.

— John Darnielle

It’s the small favors we do for ourselves that we’ll remember when we’re older. A little pampering, insurance against the unknowable tides of the future, maybe.

— John Darnielle

That’s the thing, those of us on this side of the disaster, we get so dazzled by the fireworks, by the conflagration I want to say, that we don’t see the gigantic expanse over there on the other side of the flames, but, you know. People have to live there.

— John Darnielle

From an early age, you’d been in love with the world: there was so much in it, a life so full of surprises if you only stayed open to them, ready to receive the transmissions when they came. A devotee of the chance encounter, the found pleasure, the happy accident, your eyes always open, trying to spread some of your inner light around: that was you, the you everyone knew.

— John Darnielle

They always arrive at the same questions – why don’t these young people care? how did they get like this? where were their parents? – but the asking of these questions is an exercise in self-portraiture. They’re not good questions; they’re not even questions. They’re ghost stories masquerading as concern.

— John Darnielle

The future feels dramatic when you think you see a little of it cresting the horizon, the more so if the present feels routine.

— John Darnielle

Now the birth of Gorbonian was as follows. His father the King, having defended his counties against the Flemish invaders, brought upon the land a time of feasting and plenty; and tribute did issue from the land all round, in gratitude to King Morvidus, who, though his mother had come from some far country, none knew which, did now guard his kingdom from marauders. And the people did say, that there was none so worthy as King.

— John Darnielle

When the spectre of the monotony he’s escaped sometimes rises in memory, it’s like childhood: another time entirely, a planet to which you can never return after leaving, a womb that nourished you until you were ready to breathe on your own.

— John Darnielle

There was a gentle, blurry quality to the scene. I relaxed into it. You get susceptible to environments when you don’t keep much company.

— John Darnielle

It’s a luxury to work slowly; I know it. But I don’t dwell on it. That’s the nature of luxury. You become accustomed to its presence.

— John Darnielle
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