Resuscitation of a Hanged Man Quotes

“This wasn't the sea of the inexorable horizon and smashing waves, not the sea of distance and violence, but the sea of the etenally leveling patience and wetness of water. Whether it comes to you in a storm or in a cup, it owns you--we are more water than dust. It is our origin and our destination.”
― Denis Johnson, Resuscitation of a Hanged Man

“If you like the fields we’d walk away from the road into the fields, or we’d go fishing, if that’s what you like to do. The sun would set and we’d build a fire. The trees and rocks would shrink and their shadows would grow. People don’t have eyes by the light of a fire. No, that’s glib and pointless. It’s all glib and pointless. In the worlds that live in these tears just as much as in the real world, I’d stare at you and have no idea who you were, for hours. One word after another would get choked in my heart. I wouldn’t be able to ask your name. You wouldn’t be able to see my face. After a while the fire would go out, you’d be lost in the dark, and I would cry these tears.”
― Denis Johnson, Resuscitation of a Hanged Man

“He was so entranced, he was so charmed, so captivated-rolled out flat, dreamed into, shone upon-that when she said his name, English started to live.”
― Denis Johnson, Resuscitation of a Hanged Man

“To English it was amazing how a song will take a whole confused epoch in your life, and fashion it into something sharp and elegant with which to pierce your neck.”
― Denis Johnson, Resuscitation of a Hanged Man

“He thought he might as well. "There's really only one question."
"What's that?"
"Did God really kill Himself?"
Leanna wasn't smiling now. She was staring at him, but softly.
"Who are you?" she asked him.
Whatever she meant by the question, he didn't want to answer it. He wiped his face with his napkin, and in reference to the warmth of the place said, "Man.”
― Denis Johnson, Resuscitation of a Hanged Man