Losing Julia Quotes

“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.”
― Jonathan Hull, Losing Julia

“Like most bookworms I read so as not to be alone, which often annoys those who are trying to make conversation with me.”
― Jonathan Hull, Losing Julia

“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.”
― Jonathan Hull, Losing Julia

“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.”
― Jonathan Hull, Losing Julia

“I’ve always judged places and times by how lonely they felt. The entire Midwest, for example, strikes me as horrifically lonely, Indiana more so than Wisconsin and Wisconsin more so than Ohio or Illinois. Coasts are dependably less lonely than inland areas while the warmer latitudes are noticeably less lonely than the colder ones. Hardware stores feel lonely while bookstores do not. Mornings are lonelier than afternoons, while the hours before dawn can be devastating. Vienna is lonelier than Paris or London, while Los Angeles is lonelier than San Francisco or Boston. The Atlantic Ocean is lonelier than the Pacific while the Caribbean is not lonely at all...”
― Jonathan Hull, Losing Julia

“What I remember most is the searing sensation of looking into her eyes for the first time,eyes that would hunt me for the rest of my life”
― Jonathan Hull, Losing Julia

“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.”
― Jonathan Hull, Losing Julia

“It was the chance--just the chance--to come fully alive; to love someone else so completely that you would never again feel alone. That was it, wasn’t it? The promise of being engulfed by love and passion and intimacy; to connect in a way that gently sutured together the souls.”
― Jonathan Hull, Losing Julia

“We are all eccentrics in our dreams. Lunatics, even.”
― Jonathan Hull, Losing Julia

“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.”
― Jonathan Hull, Losing Julia

“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.”
― Jonathan Hull, Losing Julia

“Maybe other people are like mirrors that we see ourselves in; versions of ourselves that vary dramatically depending on the particular cut of glass.”
― Jonathan Hull, Losing Julia

“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.”
― Jonathan Hull, Losing Julia

“But to find it and touch it and hold it! What relief, if only briefly, until love wears off or slips through our hands. Strange how love--the most fickle of emotions--creates the illusion of permanence right from the start, just as beauty, so fleeting and elusive, can seem so timeless and infinite to behold.”
― Jonathan Hull, Losing Julia

“I wonder if music is the only expression of the soul that is not hopelessly compromised in communication.”
― Jonathan Hull, Losing Julia

“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.”
― Jonathan Hull, Losing Julia

“The air was unusually warm and humid and I wondered if everyone else associated that sensation with childhood, with bare feet and wet grass and fireflies and heat lightning, and repeated entreaties to come in for dinner.”
― Jonathan Hull, Losing Julia

“What does really matter?” I asked
She looked at me as though wondering if she could trust me with some immense secret. Finally she said, “Having someone to love. Being compassionate. Being fully alive every day so that you really see and hear and smell and feel things.”
― Jonathan Hull, Losing Julia

“I've known people whose faces rested naturally in a smile and I'm certain their lives were much different because of that.”
― Jonathan Hull, Losing Julia

“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?”
― Jonathan Hull, Losing Julia

“Actually, I’m glad I’m not rich. I’ve gotta believe that it’s harder to die if you are. Not only do you lose possession of all those assets, all that cash and those stocks and bonds and cars and antiques and silver and paintings and vacation homes, but in those final days and weeks there can be no denying that a tremendous amount of your life was spent accumulating and fussing over all those assets, time that could have been spent with family and friends or fishing or traveling...”
― Jonathan Hull, Losing Julia

“How much are we the product of our faces and how much are they the product of our personalities? I’ve known people whose faces rested naturally in a smile and I’m certain their lives were much different because of that.”
― Jonathan Hull, Losing Julia

“I spent all day wandering up and down the hallways, staring at the Mona Lisa and Canova’s 'Psyche and Cupid' and the 'Venus de Milo' and Caravaggio’s 'The Death of the Virgin' and hundreds of other works in all shapes and sizes and colors. Just before I was about to leave, I was staring at Michelangelo’s 'The Dying Slave', and I suddenly realized that every single work I had seen expressed the same thing, the same intense longing for beauty and immortality and justice and compassion. It was as though all of these artists from throughout history were there in those long hallways crying out the same anguished plea in a thousand different languages.”
― Jonathan Hull, Losing Julia

“I see her again: her face wet with tears, her eyes searching mine. Slowly, very slowly, I reach my hands out and trace my fingertips along her skin, first down her neck, so warm and fragile, then across her breasts and down along the curves of her hips. Then with all my strength I wrap my arms around her and pull her toward me, but she is gone.”
― Jonathan Hull, Losing Julia

“There were angels too, some bent with devotion, others standing with heads cast down and hands clasped together, bereft. I thought of [them] and how maybe the important thing is to have somebody grieve for you; to know that angels will bow in sorrow.”
― Jonathan Hull, Losing Julia

“Was [her] life really better than most, or did she appreciate it more or just remember it differently? I suspect she remembers it differently, which is really the trick. If you want to age gracefully, remember selectively.”
― Jonathan Hull, Losing Julia

“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.”
― Jonathan Hull, Losing Julia

“Yesterday I noticed a scent of bark outside that I had not smelled in years. While the bark lingered in my nose, flushing out ancient tree houses and campfires and games of tag and capture the flag, I noticed that the birds seemed to be singing louder than usual and the leaves on the trees looked more pronounced, almost exaggerated in their lush clarity.”
― Jonathan Hull, Losing Julia

“I noticed how the band members watched her and how she made them smile and I realized that she was the kind of person who changed the feeling in a room, so that others suddenly feel that they are in the right place. Is that the secret of life, to surround yourself with people who are so full of passion, people who know sadness but not bitterness? I looked into her face, which was alive with excitement, and then into her eyes, which were full of all the things you can only say with your eyes.”
― Jonathan Hull, Losing Julia

“...the best poems were like little vessels that carry messages that can’t be transported in any other way; miniature worlds like tiny paintings or Faberge eggs.”
― Jonathan Hull, Losing Julia