Jonathan Edward Durham Quotes

You know, it’s been said that you should never meet your heroes, but I say better to know whom you place on that pedestal, don’t you agree?

The Hollow is your home and there’s no me beyond the edge

Haven’t you ever read something and felt like it was written just for you?

There’s beauty in the unknown, but there’s also beauty in truth,” she answered. “I guess some of us like to believe … and some of us just have to know.

They were proof that it could all work out even if it shouldn’t. Proof that different didn’t necessarily equal broken, even when the math seemed so sure.

the innocence of a world where the rules were easy to follow

It seems to me that it is the lens rather than the specimen that determines what we see … what we fear … what we pine for … what we try to kill or otherwise hold ever dear.

Every now and then it's nice to pick your head up from your book, reacquaint yourself with the world around you, take a hard pass, and immediately go right back to reading.

Life’s a funny thing, isn’t it? You spend it waiting for that one blinding moment of clarity … that one magic thread that sews it all together. And then one day, you wake up an older thing than you ever thought you’d be, and you realize you’ve wasted your days looking for something that was never really there at all. There are no solutions in this life, Eamon. There are only moments in the sun … and moments in the shade … and the trick of it all is to understand where you’re standing before it’s too late to call it home. I wish you peace in the fields beyond, because you will not find it here.

Offerings of the rich in brass and offerings of the poor in blood. Something of a theme in the history of your kind, or so I’ve been told.

Proof that different didn’t necessarily equal broken, even when the math seemed so sure.

There’s beauty in the unknown, but there’s also beauty in truth,” she answered. “I guess some of us like to believe … and some of us just have to know. Betcha I can guess which one you are.

Winterset Hollow was one of those timeless, inimitable books that was simple and pure and patently entertaining on the surface, but so much more underneath. It spoke about life and loss and struggle, fear and bravery and sacrifice in a way that was so approachable it was almost easy to miss, and it immediately wormed its way under Eamon's skin and stayed there like good, strong ink from the day he first opened the cover.

Even his own mother had passed during childbirth, so to a young man who couldn’t possibly know any better, the gift of a lonesome life was always to be valued over the death of living otherwise. That sentiment was etched so deeply in his heart that it took Eamon years of painful adjustment to understand that nobody really cared enough about him to wish him any sort of hereditary mortal harm, and though that gave him some solace from his childhood anxieties, it also made him feel somehow more insignificant. There were times when he wished he was the center of some grand conspiracy, if only to feel like the focus of something other than a handful of utility bills at the end of the month. Times when he wished that somebody would pay enough attention to hate him. Anything really.

And noted all the things he wished to fix up for the feast I think we’ll have a pastry, yes, of peas and onions, sage and cress I think we’ll have an egg soufflé or tartlet at the least I think we’ll have a roast of squash, full of flavor, nothing posh I think we’ll have a soup of greens with warm and toasty bread A meal of oats to warm the heart, I think would make a lovely start And jugs of wine with berries spiced the prefect shade of red

Eamon wanted many things in that moment, but most of all he wanted to be home—home in Boise, home in the country, home with a set of foster parents that he hated with every bone in his young being—anything would do. Anything would do, but he knew all too well that none of it would come to him, and so as he had done countless times before, John Eamon Buckley put one foot in front of the other with the hope that the next step might make it all worthwhile.

was true gratitude flowing from every guest amid the shuffle of serving trays and jugs of this and that—gratitude not only for their hosts and the meal they were being served, but gratitude for the book that had brought them all together as well. It was as if the love that each of them felt for Addington’s timeless collection of verse had been validated in the most searing manner, and it buoyed every one of their spirits and made them all feel a little less miscreated. They

his heart out in front of old strangers and new friends.

Mark may have been uncomplicated, but that was more a virtue and less a shortcoming in the eyes of his companions as he was never too wrapped up in himself to share a moment with them. Even if it was nothing more than a shallow back and forth, it was typically wholly welcome,

Life’s a funny thing, isn’t it? You spend it waiting for that one blinding moment of clarity … that one magic thread that sews it all together. And then one day, you wake up an older thing than you ever thought you’d be, and you realize you’ve wasted your days looking for something that was never really there at all. There are no solutions in this life, Eamon. There are only moments in the sun … and moments in the shade … and the trick of it all is to understand where you’re standing before it’s too late to call it home. I

What harm is there that I could do? It’s only for a day or two The barley will still be here in its place when I return The sun will set, the breeze will blow, the children will still play, you know And I will be the better for my journey past the burn What could you want that isn’t here, the frog said with a somber sneer What could you possibly expect to find beyond that hedge? The air is clear, the water’s clean, the grasses are the greenest green The Hollow is your home and there’s no me beyond the edge

he could see little but her grit shining in the low light of the moon.

No less in this world now, and none the worse for it.

he found himself a flat in a forgettable corner of Boise that he could afford on his meager retail assistant manager’s salary,

Eamon tried to quiet his breathing, but his fears required too much air.

speak.

We are sorry. Meant to offend you, we did not. We are simply trying to atone. Foul things have we done and—

before he took his first step toward whatever was on the other side … even he looked back over his shoulder and across the great sea to be sure that everything he knew was nowhere to be seen.

The good, the bad … the generous, the cruel … the hermit, the teetotaler … the black, the white, and the endless gray in between. You know, it’s been said that you should never meet your heroes, but I say better to know whom you place on that pedestal, don’t you agree?

and all of a sudden, before him stood one inarguable answer and a hundred burning questions. One mighty rope and a thousand loose ends. He was an old rabbit.

so he learned some years ago to be content to let his life unwind at its own pace and his nature evolve as it saw fit. It was a maddening current, but it had carried him this far, and while it hadn’t brought him to the place he wished to be yet, it had taken him out into the world and for that, if nothing else, he was thankful.

timeless, inimitable books that was simple and pure and patently entertaining on the surface, but so much more underneath. It spoke about life and loss and struggle, fear and bravery and sacrifice in a way that was so approachable it was almost easy to miss, and it immediately wormed its way under Eamon’s skin and stayed there like good, strong ink from the day he first opened the cover.

Eamon was well aware that impetus was a double-edged sword and rightly sharp, but as he dragged his bones away from the river and toward the coast, just the thought of the taste of it made his mouth run wet with a craving that rang hauntingly familiar.

all timeless, inimitable jewels of the written word stowed away in a vault that he felt was most likely built for the same purpose. A pantry for a feast of pages.

Life’s a funny thing, isn’t it? You spend it waiting for that one blinding moment of clarity … that one magic thread that sews it all together. And then one day, you wake up an older thing than you ever thought you’d be, and you realize you’ve wasted your days looking for something that was never really there at all. There are no solutions in this life, Eamon. There are only moments in the sun … and moments in the shade … and the trick of it all is to understand where you’re standing before it’s too late to call it home.

Do you know why you’re having trouble speaking now? It’s because you’ve hung your whole life on words. Your words, Edward’s words, words of authors and words of those who taught you about them. But now… now that the end is so close you can see it and there’s nobody around who cares to hear you speak… you realize that all of those words don’t mean a thing, don’t you?

The hounds crept out of their cages and stretched themselves and their joints cracked like kettle corn,

Do you know why you're having trouble speaking now? It's because you've hung your whole life on words. Your words, Edward's words, words of authors and words of those who taught you about them. But now... now that the end is so close you can see it and there's nobody around who cares to hear you speak... you realize that all of those words don't mean a thing, don't you?

There's beauty in the unknown, but there's also beauty in truth," she answered. "I guess some of us like to believe... and some of us just have to know