Denis Johnson Quotes

I let down my guard and my heart was as good as gone.

Bleeding heart, he’d called her. Well. He should know. He’d been the first to rip it to pieces.

When you look around, and very close trusted people who would never cash you in, for lack of better words, and those people do that and people leave your house and tell completely different stories, you tend not to trust people.

Remember: that giants sleep too soundly; that witches are often betrayed by their appetites; dragons have one soft spot, somewhere, always; hearts can be well-hidden, and you can betray them with your tongue. (from "Instructions")

But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve For daws to peck at: I am not what I am.

I guess the thing about exposing your heart is that people may not even notice it. Like a flop movie. Or they'll borrow your heart and they'll forget to return it to you.

Then your heart is a black, shriveled thing, because you absoluteky betray me.

Let's call cheating what it is: a complete betrayal of trust. Cheaters are people who have a lot of stuff to work out and they're working it out on your time and with your heart. Some cheaters might give you an excuse, some might not have one at all, some might even blame you. No one can tell you exactly what to do when faced with this very complicated and painful situation. But the bottom line is, is this what you had hoped for in a relationship?

In a restless heart the seed of betrayal lay.

It is a terrible thing to be so open: it is as if my heart put on a face and walked into the world.

I gave him my heart, and he took and pinched it to death; and flung it back to me. People feel with their hearts, Ellen, and since he has destroyed mine, I have not power to feel for him.

He's one of the last friends I have," she says, her voice breaking. "I don't know if I'll ever be able to look at you the same way again.

I’ve won his heart, but it’s like owning a house in which most of the doors are permanently locked. He wants to shield me from all unpleasantness. And it’s not really marriage—not like the marriage you have with Cam—until he’s willing to share the worst of himself as well as the best of himself.

You had my heart inside of your hand but you played it to the beat

The cheating was sweet, but my heart is beat. Don't tear it apart, please by-pass this heart.

If you deceive someone, you lose one of life's greatest treasures, you lose the capacity to trust. Because without trust, love is not possible.

opening up your soul to someone, letting them into your spirit, thoughts, fears, future, hopes, dreams ... that is being naked.

Once she was gone, I knelt next to Annabeth and felt her forehead. She was still burning up. "You're cute when you're worried," she muttered. "Your eyebrows get all scrunched together." "You are not going to die while I owe you a favor," I said. "Why did you take that knife?" "You would've done the same for me." It was true. I guess we both knew it. Still, I felt like somebody was poking my heart with a cold metal rod.

Yet falling in love is not the same as being able to love.

The intimacy that arises in listening and speaking truth is only possible if we can open to the vulnerability of our own hearts. Breathing in, contacting the life that is right here, is our first step. Once we have held ourselves with kindness, we can touch others in a vital and healing way.

There is a charge For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge For the hearing of my heart - It really goes. And there is a charge, a very large charge, For a word or a touch Or a bit of blood Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.

That's just the point: an honest and sensitive man opens his heart, and the man of business goes on eating - and then he eats you up.

It is a strange form of anger, difficult to cure, when two friends turn upon each other in hatred.

I am dreading the publication, for it will be impossible not to mind what is said. I have exposed my heart to be shot at.

I believe love opens people up.