Explore Quotes by Jonathan Carroll

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.

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

The future is fastidious and punctual. It keeps perfect time and arrives everywhere on the dot. In contrast, its slacker brother the past has no use for clocks or appointments. It comes and goes as it pleases in our memory, camping out wherever the hell it damn well wants to in there. Untrustworthy, prone to exaggeration, biased- you wouldn't lend it ten cents, but it *sure* can be charming and seductive when it feels like it.

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.

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

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

Ive never seen myself as a fantasy writer-ever.

I write about what interests me. It's very dangerous when you try to satisfy an audience.

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

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.

For an adult, eating alone at McDonald's is admitting a kind of defeat.

Salzburg... is a mountain town with a rushing river running right through the center, everything in the rain various shades of green and brown.

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.

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

My memory loves you… it asks about you all the time.

At the end of their relationship she asked if they could still remain friends. His face stayed expressionless until he said "No. Because we put friends in boxes. You see them once in a while, or even a lot, but still they have their box in your life, their specific place. Their *category.* That's one of the great things about being someone's love-- you have no box in their life because you're part of all their boxes. You're their friend, their lover, their confidante-- all those things. I don't want to be put in one of your boxes and I don't want to shrink you to fit into one of mine.

Reading a book, for me at least, is like traveling in someone else's world. If it's a good book, then you feel comfortable and yet anxious to see what's going to happen to you there, what'll be around the next corner. But if it's a lousy book, then it's like going through Secaucus, New Jersey -- it smells and you wish you weren't there, but since you've started the trip, you roll up the windows and breathe through your mouth until you're done.

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.

The angel said, "I like black-and-white films more than color because they're more artificial. You have to work harder to overcome your disbelief. It's sort of like prayer.

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.

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.