AtomicQuote

John Darnielle Quotes

And when the clouds do clear awayGet a momentary chance to seeThe thing I've been trying to beat to deathThe soft creature that I used to beThe better animal I used to be

John Darnielle

And when the clouds do clear awayGet a momentary chance to seeThe thing I've been trying to beat to deathThe soft creature that I used to beThe better animal I used to be

Tags: change, goths, high unicorn tolerance, loss of innocence

Cool parents, I thought, are the ones who know nothing. It made me feel a little sad for mine, but I didn't say any of this.

John Darnielle

Cool parents, I thought, are the ones who know nothing. It made me feel a little sad for mine, but I didn't say any of this.

Tags: children, parent child relationships, parents

About Author
John Darnielle ( dar-NEEL; born March 16, 1967) is an American musician and novelist best known as the primary, and originally sole, member of the American band the Mountain Goats, for which he is the writer, composer, guitarist, pianist, and vocalist. He has written three novels: Wolf in White Van (2014), Universal Harvester (2017), and Devil House (2022).

You get this really cool groove when you're playing just piano, bass, and drums where everyone's sort of feeling each other's space, which is the only way to put it, but it really is true, and everyon...

John Darnielle

You get this really cool groove when you're playing just piano, bass, and drums where everyone's sort of feeling each other's space, which is the only way to put it, but it really is true, and everyon...

Tags: space, you, kind

People like to say how much they like stuff, but with 'The Sunset Tree,' people shared stories about what it meant for them. And that stuff's so humbling and amazing.

John Darnielle

People like to say how much they like stuff, but with 'The Sunset Tree,' people shared stories about what it meant for them. And that stuff's so humbling and amazing.

Tags: sunset, tree, people

Their boots were black and shiny and your treasures gleamed like stars,Bones from deep down in the fertile crescent.

John Darnielle

Their boots were black and shiny and your treasures gleamed like stars,Bones from deep down in the fertile crescent.

Tags: addiction, loss, postlapsarian

Metal has its own code of cool, but it's not really trying to be cool. And that was very refreshing to me, that metal is very much about expressing something that seems awesome to you even if, at the...

John Darnielle

Metal has its own code of cool, but it's not really trying to be cool. And that was very refreshing to me, that metal is very much about expressing something that seems awesome to you even if, at the...

Tags: time, world, me

Your intelligence doesn't override your desire to destroy yourself.

John Darnielle

Your intelligence doesn't override your desire to destroy yourself.

Tags: yourself, desire, destroy

My feminism is what came squarely up against my faith. There's a lot of ecstatic post-patriarchal Christians who have stuff they do with that. But at that point, you're doing Christianity with a doubl...

John Darnielle

My feminism is what came squarely up against my faith. There's a lot of ecstatic post-patriarchal Christians who have stuff they do with that. But at that point, you're doing Christianity with a doubl...

Tags: book, bible, you

When you punish a person for dreaming his dreamDon't expect him to thank or forgive you.

John Darnielle

When you punish a person for dreaming his dreamDon't expect him to thank or forgive you.

Tags: dreams

I think 'The Sunset Tree' is really the album on which I really learned to trust other musicians, which is so important.

John Darnielle

I think 'The Sunset Tree' is really the album on which I really learned to trust other musicians, which is so important.

Tags: sunset, tree, musicians

Most of my interests in terms of writing are dark, so it's discordant how much I try to lock into the vibe of wherever I'm at. Inhabiting the life of the imagination is the nature of survival strategy...

John Darnielle

Most of my interests in terms of writing are dark, so it's discordant how much I try to lock into the vibe of wherever I'm at. Inhabiting the life of the imagination is the nature of survival strategy...

Tags: life, nature, writing

Metal isn't necessarily aggressive. There's metal that's contemplative, there's metal that's sad, and there's metal that's exuberant. No genre is limited in what it can express.

John Darnielle

Metal isn't necessarily aggressive. There's metal that's contemplative, there's metal that's sad, and there's metal that's exuberant. No genre is limited in what it can express.

Tags: metal, aggressive, express

I was writing poetry, and the Mountain Goats was an outgrowth of that.

John Darnielle

I was writing poetry, and the Mountain Goats was an outgrowth of that.

Tags: mountain, writing, goats

Opera combines pretty basic theater and poetry, but the storyline itself is actually quite poetic and, after some digital research, taking that actual content and seeing it as undeniably poetic.

John Darnielle

Opera combines pretty basic theater and poetry, but the storyline itself is actually quite poetic and, after some digital research, taking that actual content and seeing it as undeniably poetic.

Tags: research, digital, seeing

My father would tell me if I wasn't writing in meter verse, it wasn't poetry.

John Darnielle

My father would tell me if I wasn't writing in meter verse, it wasn't poetry.

Tags: father, writing, me