Denis Johnson Quotes

I knew that I had to write my memoirs.

Most writers, by the time they're 60, must have revisited their childhood a dozen times.

All autobiography is storytelling; all writing is autobiography.

I enjoy looking back on my life. I'm thinking seriously about starting to write about it.

Fiction can either be a mirror reflecting you back to yourself or it can be a clean pane of glass looking on the outside.

When you are writing a memoir, you have the advantage of knowing how it all ends. It's just taking your life apart and putting it together again.

As years passed away I have formed the habit of looking back upon that former self as upon another person, the remembrance of whose emotions has been a solace in adversity and added zest to the enjoyment of prosperity.

A memoir is my version of events. My perspective. I choose what to tell and what to omit. I choose the adjectives to describe a situation, and in that sense, I'm creating a form of fiction.

I just find that there's something about looking back on interviews, whether for purposes of remembering what I said about something or if it's for posterity when I'm 75.

As an historical novelist - there are few jobs more retrospective. I dumped science at an early age.

Memory is quite central for me. Part of it is that I like the actual texture of writing through memory.

So as the years draw on toward the Biblical limit, the inclination to look back, and to tell some sort of story of what one has seen, grows upon most of us.

I realized that I've always been a storyteller.

Someday, I'll write a book about what I've been through.

I've always kept a journal and brought storytelling into my teaching.

What's interesting is that some of the things I'm interested in talking about is a story which has to do with the second half of your life, which can be told through Hedwig's voice because she's older. If the timeline is consistent, she's as old as me.

So this is why I write. Because most times, your life isn’t funny the first time through. Most times, you can hardly stand it. That’s why I write, because life never works except in retrospect. And writing makes you look back. Because since you can’t control life, at least you can control your version.

I write in a rush of memory.

I say that I can't make anything up. I think of myself as a collage artist. I'm cutting and pasting memories of my life. And I say, I have to live a life in order to tell a life. I would prefer to tell it because telling you're always in control, you're like God.

Years of my life were lived knowing that I'd get a book out of them one day.

I wanted to write what I remembered to be true.

My priority is my books, at least at this point. What I have to do is write the narrative of this time.

The further you go, what, I'm gonna wait til I'm 80? Naw, I'm tellin' my story now. I was just moved. I was moved to tell my story. You know? People write books all the time.

I have a children's book already out and my autobiography.

When I wrote my first story, all the characters were teenagers because I think 16, 17 is a great age.