John Darnielle Quotes - Page 5

My son, who sees me almost every day of his life, will look at me and go, "I know that dude! I like that dude!" It's incredibly affirming.

The reality of having a kid involves day-to-day practicality - not broader philosophical outlooks.

There's this idea that there was a point in our childhood when we were in some way better than we are now and we should try to hang on to that.

From a very young age, I was the kind of kid you can just put anywhere and I'd still find stuff to be stoked about.

When I became conscious of being a person, when I was very small, I knew that I was from Indiana, but I had never seen Indiana. I was born there, but we moved when I was, like, a year old. I always had a sense of a place that was far away from where I was. I would research it and find out about it and I remember on Christmas morning I used to always call Indiana to find out what the weather was like; to see if it was snowing or not.

I am a person of high energy. That, and I sit down and I write when I get an idea - I put other things aside.

I always worry that I'm a dilettante: I know something about lots of things but don't have exhaustive knowledge of much.

I grew up in Southern California, so the whole concept of a local music history is still kinda novel to me.

I just started going to shows. I don't know how submerged I am: I feel guilty that I don't get out more, but I really like being inside the house.

The more I learn about stuff the more conscious I become of grave gaps in my knowledge.

Take dance music: I like enough of it and its history to be able to say a word or two about this or that record, but I'm nobody's authority.

I couldn't name more than a couple of good drum'n'bass acts, and I have no idea what's big in the dance world right now.

I don't celebrate milestones and I don't do anniversary editions. It's not my style to reflect on accomplishments.

I start writing, pull whatever images happen to occur to me and make up a story, instead of starting with details that are real and I know of and going from there.

Literature is a mystical place for me. It's not dry. It's where miracles happen.

I don't like to say, "Oh, I don't like this kind of music." I like to listen to it and try to see what people who like it get out of it.

I get nostalgic about having lived in Ames, Iowa, even though being a vegetarian in Iowa is not fun.

I still get really excited looking at stuff that I've seen every day for 20 years.

People involved in my personal life make fun of me a lot for not being jaded.

Kayfabe is kind of a code. To break kayfabe is to let people know that the punch was not real and that the match was scripted.

You always feel like your 18-year-old self in some sense. And that's what walking through New York on a June evening feels like - you feel like it's Friday and you're 17 years old.

If you're standing in the middle of a ring and you're playing the villain, and everyone is booing and throwing things at you, that's real.

Not everybody relates to pain, but if you can watch other people playacting it, you can absorb some of that vibe. It's like watching horror movies - you want to have the experience, but in a safe environment.

In wrestling, people just throw each other around, possibly actually bleed, and are still friends in the locker room afterwards. But there's a real glee - a feeling goes up in the arena, especially on non-TV days. If it's just people in a room and somebody starts to bleed, that's very exciting.

Men tend to dominate whatever public discourse they participate in, and another big part of feminism is to let women have their say. Men's voices can be welcome at the table, but there is a time and a place, and maybe it's now, for men to make a little less noise, make their needs less known, and listen to the needs of others.