“When you punish a person for dreaming his dreamDon't expect him to thank or forgive you.”
―
John Darnielle
“This is why people cry at the movies: because everybody’s doomed. No one in a movie can help themselves in any way. Their fate has already staked its claim on them from the moment they appear onscreen.” ― John Darnielle, Wolf in White Van
“People say friends don't destroy one another - what do they know about friends?” ― John Darnielle
“There are only two stories: either you go forward or you die.” ― John Darnielle, Wolf in White Van
“Good things never last, bad things never die.” ― John Darnielle, Master of Reality
“I didn’t feel like I’d really won anything, but I had come through the day no worse off than I’d come into it, which, as I have been telling myself for many years now, is a victory whether it feels like one or not.” ― John Darnielle, Wolf in White Van
“It isn’t really much of a mystery, this occasional need I have to comfort my father. I did something terrible to his son once.” ― John Darnielle, Wolf in White Van
“People trying to help you when you’re past help are raw and helpless. Nobody wins: you get nothing; they feel worse.” ― John Darnielle, Wolf in White Van
“Not everybody wants to get out and see the world. Nothing wrong with that. Sometimes you just want to figure out how to fit yourself into the world you already know.” ― John Darnielle, Universal Harvester
“In video games you sometimes run into what they call a side quest, and if you don't manage to figure it out you can usually just go back into the normal world of the game and continue on toward your objective. I felt like I couldn't find my way back to the world now: like I was somebody locked in a meaningless side quest, in a stuck screen.” ― John Darnielle, Wolf in White Van
“but people underestimate just how starved everybody is for some magic pathway back into childhood.” ― John Darnielle, Wolf in White Van
“The most remarkable thing about you standing in the doorway is that it’s you, and that you’re standing in the doorway.” ― John Darnielle
“There is something fierce and starved about first ideas.” ― John Darnielle, Wolf in White Van
“Books are like rocks. You hold one in your hand and look at it in various lights to get a sense of it, and then when you get a good angle, you throw it through a window to see what happens.” ― John Darnielle
“Some things are hard to explain to your parents. Some things are hard to explain, period, but your parents especially are never going to understand them.” ― John Darnielle, Wolf in White Van
“I am heavy in his arms, and I feel safe there, but I am lost, and I need constantly to be shoring up the wall that holds my emotions at bay, or I will feel something too great to contain.” ― John Darnielle, Wolf in White Van
“You should avoid seeing too much of yourself anywhere: in the outside world, in others, in the imagined worlds that give you shelter.” ― John Darnielle, Wolf in White Van
“And I started to say “fine,” and I meant to say “fine,” but I ended up saying that I felt my life was filled like a big jug to the brim with almost indescribable joy, so much that I hardly knew how to handle it.” ― John Darnielle, Wolf in White Van
“It's not that nobody ever gets away: that's not true. It's that you carry it with you. It doesn't matter that the days roll on like hills too low to give names to; they might be of use later, so you keep them. You replay them to keep their memory alive. It feels worthwhile because it is.” ― John Darnielle, Universal Harvester
“This is why people cry at the movies: because everybody’s doomed. No one in a movie can help themselves in any way. Their fate has already staked its claim on them from the moment they appear onscreen.” ― John Darnielle, Wolf in White Van
“People say friends don't destroy one another - what do they know about friends?” ― John Darnielle
“There are only two stories: either you go forward or you die.” ― John Darnielle, Wolf in White Van
“Good things never last, bad things never die.” ― John Darnielle, Master of Reality
“I didn’t feel like I’d really won anything, but I had come through the day no worse off than I’d come into it, which, as I have been telling myself for many years now, is a victory whether it feels like one or not.” ― John Darnielle, Wolf in White Van
“It isn’t really much of a mystery, this occasional need I have to comfort my father. I did something terrible to his son once.” ― John Darnielle, Wolf in White Van
“People trying to help you when you’re past help are raw and helpless. Nobody wins: you get nothing; they feel worse.” ― John Darnielle, Wolf in White Van
“Not everybody wants to get out and see the world. Nothing wrong with that. Sometimes you just want to figure out how to fit yourself into the world you already know.” ― John Darnielle, Universal Harvester
“In video games you sometimes run into what they call a side quest, and if you don't manage to figure it out you can usually just go back into the normal world of the game and continue on toward your objective. I felt like I couldn't find my way back to the world now: like I was somebody locked in a meaningless side quest, in a stuck screen.” ― John Darnielle, Wolf in White Van
“but people underestimate just how starved everybody is for some magic pathway back into childhood.” ― John Darnielle, Wolf in White Van
“The most remarkable thing about you standing in the doorway is that it’s you, and that you’re standing in the doorway.” ― John Darnielle
“There is something fierce and starved about first ideas.” ― John Darnielle, Wolf in White Van
“Books are like rocks. You hold one in your hand and look at it in various lights to get a sense of it, and then when you get a good angle, you throw it through a window to see what happens.” ― John Darnielle
“Some things are hard to explain to your parents. Some things are hard to explain, period, but your parents especially are never going to understand them.” ― John Darnielle, Wolf in White Van
“I am heavy in his arms, and I feel safe there, but I am lost, and I need constantly to be shoring up the wall that holds my emotions at bay, or I will feel something too great to contain.” ― John Darnielle, Wolf in White Van
“You should avoid seeing too much of yourself anywhere: in the outside world, in others, in the imagined worlds that give you shelter.” ― John Darnielle, Wolf in White Van
“And I started to say “fine,” and I meant to say “fine,” but I ended up saying that I felt my life was filled like a big jug to the brim with almost indescribable joy, so much that I hardly knew how to handle it.” ― John Darnielle, Wolf in White Van
“It's not that nobody ever gets away: that's not true. It's that you carry it with you. It doesn't matter that the days roll on like hills too low to give names to; they might be of use later, so you keep them. You replay them to keep their memory alive. It feels worthwhile because it is.” ― John Darnielle, Universal Harvester
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