Quotes from Jonathan Carroll

I don't like to have to pan for gold when I read.

If you are a success in life, there are places you must go and pay to be humiliated. It is an unwritten law that human beings must be tormented throughout their lives in one way or another. If you are fortunate enough to have risen to a social level where no one does it to you for free, then you must pay for the service.

A short story is a sprint, a novel is a marathon. Sprinters have seconds to get from here to there and then they are finished. Marathoners have to carefully pace themselves so that they don't run out of energy (or in the case of the novelist-- ideas) because they have so far to run. To mix the metaphor, writing a short story is like having a short intense affair, whereas writing a novel is like a long rich marriage.

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

The questions are the danger. Leave them alone and they sleep. Ask them, awake them, and more than you know will begin to rise.

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.

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

It took me less than half a lifetime to realize that regret is one of the few guaranteed certainties. Sooner or later everything is touched by it, despite our naive and senseless hope that just this time we will be spared its cold hand on our heart.

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.

If it was as logical as that, I wouldn't continue to feel as bad as I do. I know what you're saying, and you're absolutely right in a way. But logic and rationality only go so far. Then you know what happens? Ha! Then your heart adds its two cents and everything reasonable goes right-out-the-window.

The only way to make beauty ugly is to show it's crazy. Like twisting the top off a jar of something wonderful to eat, the moment he's hit by the terrible smell of it gone bad, even the hungriest person will drop the jar in the trash without a second thought.

A monster is not a monster if it doesn't scare you.

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.

I had once thought strength of character was a hardening of oneself; an intricate protection system by which you reconciled yourself to the truths of life and learned to let them not bother you. But all systems of character building go right out the window when you find there aren't anymore truths.. or none you recognize.

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.

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

Not responding is a response.

Everything will haunt you, all the storms will find you, everything will remind you she's gone.

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.

We're often wrong at predicting who or what will transform us. Encountering certain people, books, music, places, or ideas Ã¢â'¬Â¦ at just the right time can immediately make our lives happier, richer, more beautiful, resonant, or meaningful. When it happens, we feel a kind of instant love for them, both deep and abiding. Now and then it can be something as trifling as a children's book, a returned telephone call, or a night at a seaside bar in Mykonos.

Sure, because it's a fairy tale. They're always so tediously moral. Nobody gets away with anything fun and all the interesting people are bad guys.

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.

ja nie wybaczam niczego. nawet je?li w pi?tej klasie zw?dzi?e? mi pomara?czow? kredk?, to jeste? ju? na zawsze na mojej czarnej li?cie, draniu.

She was 3/4 perfection and 1/4 broken glass.