Jonathan Hull Quotes

I don’t think we ever really live in the present; instead, we’re either just this side of the past or future, wavering anxiously between anticipation and recollection. That’s where I lived my life, always wanting, longing, wishing.

Books aren’t just my defenses, the sandbags I use to fortify my position; they are also the building blocks of my soul, and I am the sum of all I read.

It is said that life is too short, and that’s quite true, unless you are lonely. Loneliness can bring time to its knees; an absolute and utter standstill.

Maybe what life needs is a good soundtrack, especially during the long stretches when nothing interesting is being said. A soundtrack might dignify things a bit, ennobling us with the proper drama and tension and pathos.

We are all eccentrics in our dreams. Lunatics, even.

I think we all look for clues that we are not utterly alone... Clues we find in literature and paintings and music and even someone’s eyes; clues that demonstrate that someone else has felt the same indescribable feelings, seen the same things or passed by the spot even if it was by candlelight three hundred years ago. It means everything, like finding footprints in the sand of a deserted island.

So who is better off, those who share love long enough to see which parts inevitably fade or those who lose their love when it is still pristine? I think each is lonely in a different place, though if you lose your love while it is still perfect you at least have a clear explanation for your grief, while if it gradually crumbles in your hands you do not.

I wonder if music is the only expression of the soul that is not hopelessly compromised in communication.

Without art; without paintings, books, sculpture and music, the human soul would be quite impenetrable, don't you think?

I’ve always hated Mondays, the whole lot of them. Too much whiplash, snapping the tired masses to attention. God’s way, perhaps, of reminding us that we are not masters of our fate, no matter how deluded we became during the weekend respite.

If love doesn’t triumph, it ought to. For love is the one thing we have that feels more powerful than even death; the only respite from life’s wretched absurdity. The magic of love is not that it contains all the answers, it’s that it eliminates the need for so many pressing questions. For love makes us feel like gods--and that’s what we’re really after, isn’t it?

Why does the longing for love have to be so acute, like a desperate thirst? Is it because love is wanting to be saved and we can never really be saved? Maybe love is really born of our fears. Love is the heart’s desire for a painkiller; a tearful plea for a great big epidural. Yes that’s it: love is the only anesthesia that really works. And so people with broken hearts are really those who are just coming to, and if you’ve ever seen someone come out of general anesthesia, you know that it looks a lot like the beginnings of a broken heart.

Love is self-explanatory: the right person makes you feel well nigh immortal, vaccinating you with their affections. So long as you remain in their heart you are safe, or better than safe even, for a while at least. You are momentarily, in a state of grace.

Maybe other people are like mirrors that we see ourselves in; versions of ourselves that vary dramatically depending on the particular cut of glass.

I've known people whose faces rested naturally in a smile and I'm certain their lives were much different because of that.