Fiskadoro Quotes

“My father is dead!" As soon as he'd said it, Fiskadoro saw he'd made it true again--again for the first time. Did it just go around and around? He began to see that his sorrow wasn't simple. It wasn't one thing, but a thousand things carrying him away to the Ocean: the work of a person's life was to drink it.”
― Denis Johnson, Fiskadoro: A Stunning Post-Apocalyptic Novel of Nuclear War Survivors Rebuilding Tomorrow

“But in the deep red event behind the stove’s glass window the filament of time was never tangled, nothing had a name or a reason, everything was itself, and the things she would always know, even if you took her head away, even if you killed her, were confirmed: It catches, then burns, then blazes; it rages and sings, it wanes, it shifts and flares, it burns a little longer and then weakens, whatever it is, and goes out. But if you lay the small wood across it in the morning, it all begins again.”
― Denis Johnson, Fiskadoro: A Stunning Post-Apocalyptic Novel of Nuclear War Survivors Rebuilding Tomorrow