David Johnson > Quotes

“Nobody can do life on their own. There ain’t nothing wrong with asking for help. As a matter of fact, a man told me one time that the best gift you can give someone is the opportunity to help you.”
― David Johnson, April's Rain

“Signs are my food, drink are my tears; Clinking of fetters such music would crave; Stink and close air, away my life wears Innocency is all the hope I have. —Sir Thomas Wyatt”
― David Johnson, April's Rain

“So, here’s how it’s going to be,” she continues. “The doctor says I’ve only got a few months to live.” Tucker’s mouth flies open and panic distorts her features. She rises slowly from the couch and stumbles toward the front door. Opening it, she goes into Ella’s front yard. Ella makes a move to go after her when suddenly she hears a cry from outside that makes her blood turn cold. It sounds as if someone has taken the scream of a screech owl and the howl of a coyote and mixed them in hell. Ella has a memory of reading The Hound of the Baskervilles as a child and trying to imagine what the eerie howl of the hound must have sounded like. Now she is certain she knows what it sounded like and why even the intrepid Sherlock Holmes was unnerved upon hearing it.”
― David Johnson, An Unexpected Frost

“And he speaks best that hath the skill when for to hold his peace. —Thomas, Lord Vaux”
― David Johnson, April's Rain

“used to wonder what feelings are If they were something other people kept in a jar Then, reaching in, they would choose whatever feeling they wished. Today I learned the truth about feelings – You don’t choose them; they choose you. They grab you, HARD, and don’t let go until they decide to. I think I liked it better when I didn’t know what feelings are.”
― David Johnson, Who Will Hear Me When I Cry

“I think that’s what I find so refreshing about this odd woman. Hmmm . . . Maybe not odd. Maybe unusual is better. She is exactly what she appears to be. She says exactly what’s on her mind and is sincere in every way.”
― David Johnson, Tucker's Way / For Tucker

“don’t ever let your focus be so much on the one cloud in the sky that you miss noticing the unending expanse of beautiful blue and the brilliant, shining sun all around.”
― David Johnson, An Unexpected Frost

“Getting stuck on the past will weigh you down and looking into the future will only create worries.”
― David Johnson, An Unexpected Frost

“The only advice I can give you,” Smiley says, “is that you ought to do what you think God would want you to do.  ‘Cause if you do that, you won’t go wrong.” Turning”
― David Johnson, Who Will Hear Me When I Cry

“My idea of listening to his voice is that he will show me how to overcome the obstacles in my path, not that he will remove them from my path. And it’s the end of the journey that I’m interested in, the one that comes after the final obstacle—death.”
― David Johnson, April's Rain

“Connie said that eighty or eighty-five would be a full life. A full life. But the number of years a person lives has nothing to do with whether or not they’ve lived a full life. Eighty years is a lot of years, I guess, when compared to twenty years. But just because a person has lived a lot of years doesn’t mean they’ve lived a full life.”
― David Johnson, An Unexpected Frost

“Once again, William’s blundering words bludgeoned the areas of Mary’s heart that couldn’t seem to heal—that she had left him childless and that she would never know the joy of raising a child.”
― David Johnson, The Woodcutter's Wife

“feeling more and more”
― David Johnson, Tucker's Way / For Tucker

“I take a slow, deep breath. “There’s one last CHAPTER. My grandmother, my fairy godmother, Ella, got cancer again”
― David Johnson, April's Rain

“Be proud of who you are because color has nothing to do with the quality of a person’s life. That’s what I learned from him. No one can take that away from you.”
― David Johnson, An Unexpected Frost

“high”
― David Johnson, April's Rain

“Men will say, ‘My wife cooks a good ham,’ or ‘My wife can plow a garden,’ or ‘My wife makes excellent wine.’ And then I’ll step up and say, matter-of-factly, ‘My wife killed a bear.’” William broke into a dance again. “I can see their faces now. No one will have anything to say that can top that!”
― David Johnson, The Woodcutter's Wife

“The truth is that I am cursed by God. For reasons that I don’t understand, he has decided that grief will be my constant companion and that loss will follow me everywhere I go.”
― David Johnson, The Woodcutter's Wife

“heart. It’s a vicious cycle.”
― David Johnson, The Woodcutter's Wife

“She says nothing matters but this moment right here, right now. She says she focuses on one slice of time at a time. Getting stuck on the past will weigh you down and looking into the future will only create worries.”
― David Johnson, An Unexpected Frost

“try hard to live one day at a time and live each day to its fullest. I’m not waiting until I reach a certain position or juncture in my life to start enjoying life. I enjoy today, no matter what today brings.”
― David Johnson, An Unexpected Frost

“Make sense of it all. Maybe we can’t make sense out of everything because we aren’t God. Maybe we’re not supposed to make sense of it all. Practicing acceptance is something else I’ve been working on lately. I just try to accept things as they are.”
― David Johnson, Who Will Hear Me When I Cry

“person is faced with a choice, an’ no matter how they choose, somebody’s gonna get hurt. There jes’ ain’t no way ’round it. So they gotta decide. And it ain’t th’ kind o’ situation where they can go talk t’ people an’ get their advice. No, it’s somethin’ they gotta decide right there in th’ moment, sometimes a split-second of a moment. An’ after they choose, it’s one o’ them things that can’t never be undone. That’s th’ worst part, that there’s no changin’ yore mind and takin’ it back ’r fixin’ things back like they was. What’s done is done an’ you jes’ gotta live with it, maybe even die with it.”
― David Johnson, April's Rain

“I don’t know if I can give it to someone else, even someone as deserving as you.”
― David Johnson, The Woodcutter's Wife

“There’s been times I wished time would stop and let me take a deeper drink of a moment, but there’s been other times that I wished it would hurry and get over with.”
― David Johnson, The Woodcutter's Wife

“Ever’ one o’ these hairs is a medal. They’s medals for things I’ve had t’ deal with an’ overcome in m’ life. I wear ’em proud. Besides, Miss Ella says m’ white hair gives me character, whatever that”
― David Johnson, An Unexpected Frost

“I’ve never told anyone I was married because it was too painful to speak of. When sadness slips out of your heart and turns into words that come out of your mouth, it pains your ears to hear it, which just multiplies the sadness in your heart. It’s a vicious cycle. That’s why I just kept it to myself.”
― David Johnson, The Woodcutter's Wife

“want to say something to you, Thomas. I do love you, maybe not in the way you want just yet, but you are a dear, dear friend, and I at least want the chance to get to know you better and decide if I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
― David Johnson, The Woodcutter's Wife

“You just try each day to let go of your bitterness and anger toward that person. Some days you’ll do pretty good, and some days you’ll think you’re not getting anywhere. But you got to try every day.”
― David Johnson, An Unexpected Frost

“You know, I asked myself a time or two why I was taking care of you and why I didn’t just leave. The answer I kept coming up with was because you a good woman who has lost much, and maybe God sent me here to show you some mercy.”
― David Johnson, The Woodcutter's Wife