Top 90 Jonathan Carroll Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “In the end, each of us has only one story to tell. It takes a lifetime to live that story but sometimes less than an hour to tell it. The.”

— Jonathan Carroll

52. “Old age arrives like the first days of fall. One afternoon you look up, or smell something in the air, and know instinctively things have changed. I suppose the same thing is true about our own death. Suddenly it’s near enough that we can smell it.”

— Jonathan Carroll

53. “Pilot had never seen this particular ghost before. Head resting on paws, he mildly wondered what it was doing here. Dogs see ghosts about as often as people see cats. They’re there but they’re no big deal.”

— Jonathan Carroll

54. “Old people are often impatient, but for what?”

— Jonathan Carroll

55. “Everyone coming out of a perfume store is smelling the back of their hand.”

— Jonathan Carroll

56. “A monster is not a monster if it doesn’t scare you.”

— Jonathan Carroll

57. “Chaos doesn’t do, it undoes.”

— Jonathan Carroll

58. “Very often I’ll find out at the end of a book what I put in at the beginning. A sort of process of elimination and discovery in one.”

— Jonathan Carroll

59. “I had always liked blind dates. If nothing else, it was an interesting way of discovering what people thought of you.”

— Jonathan Carroll

60. “Coffee on an airplane always smells bad. Whenever it is served, suddenly the whole cabin stinks of it.”

— Jonathan Carroll

61. “There’s almost always a point in a book where something happens that triggers the rest of the plot.”

— Jonathan Carroll

62. “Night keeps its own sounds to itself because most of them come from the other side of silence.”

— Jonathan Carroll

63. “The Viennese wash everything. Where else in the world does the government hire public servants to wash public telephone booths and the glass over traffic lights? Every time I see someone doing these things, I smile like a child.”

— Jonathan Carroll

64. “At a Boston signing, someone from the audience asked why I was so obsessed with furniture in my books. The question rattled around in my head. I had no idea that I was obsessed with furniture.”

— Jonathan Carroll

65. “I’ve noticed most people are at their best during the day, in the light. Night fascinates you with its mystery and potential, but it’s ominous too because things are easily hidden or lost in the dark, especially control. Most species I’ve encountered are powerless there. No matter where that dark is – inside or out – you are all at its mercy. It’s harder to lose things and easier to find them, including yourself, in the light.”

— Jonathan Carroll

66. “I write about what interests me. It’s very dangerous when you try to satisfy an audience.”

— Jonathan Carroll

67. “Time doesn’t fly, it steals. Like some skilled pickpocket or magician, it gets you to look the other way and when you do, it ruthlessly steals your essential things – memories, great moments that end much too soon, the lives of those you love. It knows how to trick you and then steal you blind.”

— Jonathan Carroll

68. “Ive never seen myself as a fantasy writer-ever.”

— Jonathan Carroll

69. “I find you write with one person in mind. Usually for me that one person is my wife, because she’s my most severe critic and understands best what I’m trying to do.”

— Jonathan Carroll

70. “If I don’t feel like writing today or for a few days, I don’t. And I don’t think about it. It is not an obligation-it is the greatest privilege.”

— Jonathan Carroll

71. “Far more disturbing than any spook house at an amusement park is a ride through the old hometown if you’ve been away for years.”

— Jonathan Carroll

72. “I know a lot of artists. The greatest loves of all their lives are their creations. Unfortunately most of us don’t have that kind of talent, so we have to make do with falling in love with real people.”

— Jonathan Carroll

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

— Jonathan Carroll

74. “I started a short story but it was so dreary that even my pen threw up.”

— Jonathan Carroll

75. “When I was younger, I had a girlfriend. She was like a thousand-dollar perfume – unique, gorgeous, but then gone much too soon.”

— Jonathan Carroll

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

— Jonathan Carroll

77. “One of the joys of being a dog is that they have no concept of the word “future.” Everything is right now, and if right now happens to be a warm floor and a full stomach, then life is good.”

— Jonathan Carroll

78. “BUYING A PAIR OF shoes is one of the most optimistic acts I know, next to falling in love. I like nothing better than to see an old man wearing a brand new pair of brogues or cap-toed oxfords, preferably jaunty orange-brown, unscuffed, heels unworn. We want to be here tomorrow, but buying new shoes, like falling in love, says I plan on being here tomorrow.”

— Jonathan Carroll

79. “At eight you’re dead serious about what the world owes you: Civilization starts in your own room and moves out from there.”

— Jonathan Carroll

80. “The world can be divided between people who can get a waiter’s attention and those who can’t.”

— Jonathan Carroll

81. “The Angel of Death was nothing special to look at: it had manifested itself today as a plate of someone’s finished meal of bacon and eggs. Egg yolk was smeared across the white plate. Inside this smear were scattered bread crumbs.”

— Jonathan Carroll

82. “A wish is a dream come true. Since dreams are never clear, they invariably disappoint.”

— Jonathan Carroll

83. “Behind the chain-link fence the skeleton of the structure, floodlit from all sides, looked very much like a rocket ship on its launchpad. The lights, so harsh and intense, refused to admit darkness was behind them, beyond them. But the beams quickly disappeared once they flooded out past the museum and into the Alpine night. You would think so much candlepower could shine well up into the sky, but it can bully the night only so far, which is not far at all.”

— Jonathan Carroll

84. “It’s easy to believe in yourself when you’re lying, because you’re talking about someone else.”

— Jonathan Carroll

85. “She became my favorite scar.”

— Jonathan Carroll

86. “Loving’s not the question – living is. Love builds the house, but then you got to furnish it.”

— Jonathan Carroll

87. “When I was in college, I was the editor of the literary magazine and insisted neither the editors nor the writers be specifically identified-only our student numbers appeared on the title page. I love that idea and still do.”

— Jonathan Carroll

88. “Some people are more forgiving when they understand a situation, while others become even more furious once they see the whole picture.”

— Jonathan Carroll

89. “Old age arrives like the first days of fall. One afternoon you look up, or smell something in the air, and know instinctively things have changed.”

— Jonathan Carroll

90. “Sure, he’s an ass, but remember, I have to live in their house. Anyway, that’s how you treat people like that: Make ’em know how dumb they are, and they go away feeling a little less pleased with themselves.”

— Jonathan Carroll

91. “Someone made the point somewhere that we must learn to distinguish between the occult and the religious, between magic and true spirituality. The two do sometimes come together – saints do have magical powers, sure, But they don’t exploit these powers, and more important, they consider them only by-products of their real concern, which is spiritual development.”

— Jonathan Carroll