Top 90 Jonathan Carroll Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Sometimes you have to give up on people. Not because you don’t care, but because they don’t.”

— Jonathan Carroll

2. “The fact that I’m silent doesn’t mean I have nothing to say.”

— Jonathan Carroll

3. “The only two important things in life are real love and being at peace with yourself.”

— Jonathan Carroll

4. “You know people don’t get better as we get older- we just get more of who we are.”

— Jonathan Carroll

5. “Real love is always chaotic. You lose control; you lose perspective. You lose the ability to protect yourself. The greater the love, the greater the chaos. It’s a given and that’s the secret.”

— Jonathan Carroll

6. “Everything you want in life has teeth.”

— Jonathan Carroll

7. “I feel like a cliche.”

— Jonathan Carroll

8. “You have to walk carefully in the beginning of love; the running across fields into your lover’s arms can only come later when you’re sure they won’t laugh if you trip.”

— Jonathan Carroll

9. “Learn to wait; invariably either things will change or your heart will.”

— Jonathan Carroll

10. “Its easy to lose sight of what you want when you think you want everything.”

— Jonathan Carroll

11. “Although our emotions sometimes behave like spoiled, selfish children, unfortunately we cannot send them to their room or tell them to stop screaming.”

— Jonathan Carroll

12. “The first great real intimacy between two people begins when secrets are told.”

— Jonathan Carroll

13. “How easily we ignore or forget the small kindnesses and considerations in life which are really the only everyday magic we witness on a regular basis. Just think- to make happiness out of nothing more than a few kind words or a generous gesture.”

— Jonathan Carroll

14. “Some people are like blue jeans- the older and more beat up they get, the better they look.”

— Jonathan Carroll

15. “Lying is too much trouble. You have to make sure to taste each word before letting it off your tongue. I hate that. It’s hard enough making people understand without lying.”

— Jonathan Carroll

16. “Writing a short story is like having a short intense affair, whereas writing a novel is like a long rich marriage.”

— Jonathan Carroll

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17. “Kids own nothing. Everything is either promised, borrowed, longed for or exaggerated.”

— Jonathan Carroll

18. “The tragedy of being old is you can no longer apply what has taken you so long to learn.”

— Jonathan Carroll

19. “For an adult, eating alone at McDonald’s is admitting a kind of defeat.”

— Jonathan Carroll

20. “The problem with waiting for someone, whether that wait is an hour or a lifetime, is everyone’s ‘clock’ is different. So what you might consider forever is only a little while to them, or vice versa.”

— Jonathan Carroll

21. “Death doesn’t make you sad- it makes you empty. That’s what’s so bad about it. All of your charms and beliefs and funny habits fall fast through a big black hole, and suddenly you know they’re gone because just as suddenly, there’s nothing left at all inside.”

— Jonathan Carroll

22. “Time talks behind our back. To our face it’s friendly and logical, never hesitating to give more of itself. But when we’re not looking, it steals our lives and says bad things about us to the parts of us it’s stolen.”

— Jonathan Carroll

23. “Yo can always take back the lost parts of yourself if you can find and recognize them.”

— Jonathan Carroll

24. “I would have given him everything. I would have pulled down planets to make our life work.”

— Jonathan Carroll

25. “Most men think they are good drivers. Most women think they are good in bed. They aren’t.”

— Jonathan Carroll

26. “One of the saddest realities is that we never know when our lives are at their peak. Only after it is over and we have some kind of perspective do we realize how good we had it a day, a month, five years ago.”

— Jonathan Carroll

27. “I forgive nothing. If you stole my orange crayon in the fifth grade, you’re still on my hit list, buddy.”

— Jonathan Carroll

28. “If you are very lucky, you’re allowed to be in certain places during just the right season of your life: by the sea for the summer when you’re seven or eight and full of the absolute need to swim until dark and exhaustion close their hands together, cupping you in between.”

— Jonathan Carroll

29. “Dogs are here to remind us life really is a simple thing. You eat, sleep, take walks, and pee when you must. That’s about all there is. They are quick to forgive trespasses and assume strangers will be kind.”

— Jonathan Carroll

30. “Fear’s greatest weapon is its ability to blind one to anything. In its presence, we forget there are others to consider, things to save besides ourselves.”

— Jonathan Carroll

31. “Fear pounds on the door to our heart demanding to be let in. Joy is modest and often comes into our lives like a shy person entering a room; it can take a while to even notice it’s there.”

— Jonathan Carroll

32. “Just write about what bites you and damn the rest.”

— Jonathan Carroll

33. “Only the guilty and the lovers really fear. The first because of what they are, the second for what they might lose.”

— Jonathan Carroll

34. “I wish I knew the flavor of my happiness.”

— Jonathan Carroll

35. “People are always waiting to be discovered.”

— Jonathan Carroll

36. “She became my favorite scar.”

— Jonathan Carroll

37. “Opening his arms he said quietly to her, “Disappear here.”

— Jonathan Carroll

38. “Not responding is a response.”

— Jonathan Carroll

39. “Sometimes it is the smallest thing that saves us: the weather growing cold, a child’s smile, and a cup of excellent coffee.”

— Jonathan Carroll

40. “Dogs are minor angels, and I don’t mean that facetiously. They love unconditionally, forgive immediately, are the truest of friends, willing to do anything that makes us happy.”

— Jonathan Carroll

41. “Like a spider web that you walk into, it is not so easy to get all the tendrils of real love off after you have passed through it.”

— Jonathan Carroll

42. “I have never heard anyone say This is it. I know right now is the high point of my life. It will never get any better. Only in retrospect do we recognize the best times and of course then it is too late.”

— Jonathan Carroll

43. “People who truly love us can be divided into two categories: those who understand us, and those who forgive us our worst sins. Rarely do you find someone capable of both.”

— Jonathan Carroll

44. “I’d say I’m living, but I’m not alive without you.”

— Jonathan Carroll

45. “I think we love differently every day. Like the guy who said you can’t stand in a river at exactly the same place twice. Today I love you differently than yesterday, or will tomorrow.”

— Jonathan Carroll

46. “Dogs are the kids we’ve always wanted. They’re totally devoted and want to live with you until they die. Not like children who can’t wait to take off as soon as they grow up and don’t need you anymore.”

— Jonathan Carroll

47. “Most men, no matter how well or badly dressed, carry overstuffed, beat up wallets that should have been replaced years ago. Why is that? Every time I see a guy take out a wallet anywhere, it looks like a piece of old melted chocolate cake-with strings.”

— Jonathan Carroll

48. “Not only do you lose a person to death, but you lose their noise too – their noise and smells, gestures and facial expressions. You lose the way they talk and phrase things and laugh, the way they fill in your blanks without ever thinking about it or having to try. You lose things you love about them they don’t even know they possess.”

— Jonathan Carroll

49. “The keys that unlock the heart are made of funny materials: a disarming phrase that comes out of the blue, nowhere, a certain sexy walk that sends you reeling, the way someone hums when she is alone. My father said it was the way my mother danced with him.”

— Jonathan Carroll

50. “Even the handsomest men do not have the same momentary effect on the world as a truly beautiful woman does.”

— Jonathan Carroll