Top 515 Quotes & Sayings by Dean Koontz - Page 8

Shakespeare again. Once you let him into your head, he takes up tenancy and will not leave.

If she possessed any memory whatsoever of the days when she'd been whole, her shattered recollections were scattered across the darkscape of her mind in fragments so minuscule that she could no more easily piece them together than she could gather from the beach all the tiny chips of broken seashells, worn to polished flakes by ages of relentless tides, and reassemble them into their original architectures.

Only time conquers time and its burdens.

Not all popular novelists are good, but all good novelists are, sooner or later, popular.

In the real world as in dreams nothing is quite what it seems. -The Book of Counted Sorrows

Humanity was drawn to turmoil and self-destruction as inevitably as the earth was drawn to complete its annual revolution of the sun.

The recognition of pain and fear in others give rise in us to pity, and in our pity is our humanity, our redemption.

When I am battered and oppressed by the world that humanity has made - which is difference from the world that is was given - my primary defense, my consolation, is the absurdity of that world

The hatred of truth is the taproot of violence.

When a knot gets to tight, you can always cut the rope

We are an arrogant species, full of terrible potential, but we also have a great capacity for love, friendship, generosity, kindness, faith, hope, and joy.

If Edgar Allan Poe were alive today, his agent would be constantly slapping him upside the head with tightly rolled copies of his brilliant short stories and novelettes, yelling, 'Full-length novels, you moron! Pay attention! What's the matter with you -- are you shooting heroin or something? Write for the market! No more of this midlength 'Fall of the House of Usher' crap

She blinked, sat up, and saw Chris in the bathroom doorway. He'd just gotten out the shower. His hair was damp, and he was dressed only in his briefs. The sight of his thin, boyish body - all ribs and elbows and knees - pulled at her heart, for he looked so innocent and vulnerable. He was so small and fragile that she wondered how she could ever protect him, and renewed fear rose in her.

That was interesting, riding in the trunk," Milo said, "but I wouldn't want to do it again.

Guilt is a tireless horse. Grief ages into sorrow, and sorrow is an enduring rider.

Your sense of responsibility to others can never be excessive.

She might have been born this way, without an empathy gene and other essentials. In that case, she would interpret any kindness as weakness. Among predatory beasts, any display of weakness is an invitation to attack.

The things we worry about the most are never the things that bite us. The sharpest teeth always take their nip of us when we are looking the other way.

Life without meaning cannot be borne. We find a mission to which we're sworn -or answer the call of Death's dark horn. Without a gleaning of purpose in life, we have no vision, we live in strife, -or let blood fall on a suicide knife.

This world, which has the potential to be Eden, is instead the hell before Hell. In our arrogance, we have made it so.

Funny, how one good cookie could calm the mind and even elevate a troubled soul.

Home is the first refuge from - and last defense against - the disappointments and the terrors of life.

Every day we make our way through a moral forest, along pathways ever branching. Often we get lost. When the array of paths before us is so perplexing that we can't make a choice, or won't, we can hope that we will be given a sign to guide us. A reliance on signs, however, can lead to the evasion of all moral obligations, and thus earn a terrible judgment.

Death lies dormant in each of us and will bloom in time.

A silent dark...as black as a moonless lake, as a ravine's wings, darkness there and nothing more, merely this and nothing more.

Every talent is unearned, however, and with it comes a solemn obligation to use it as fully and as wisely as possible.

One door away from heaven And the key is ours to lose. One door away from heaven But oh, the entry dues.

Night has patterns that can be read less by the living than by the dead.

Maybe there's nothing impossible tonight. We're down the hole to Wonderland, and no White Rabbit to guide us." If I remember correctly, the White Rabbit was an unreliable guide, anyway.

Rub-a-dub-dub. Cerebrum in a tub.

The saddest thing in the world was that human beings, for all their ardent striving and desire, could never achieve physical, emotional, or intellectual perfection. The species was doomed to imperfection; it thrashed forever in despair or denial of that fact.

The true nature of the world was weirder than any bizarre fabric that anyone might weave from the warp and weft of imagination's loom.

Acting is a marvelous profession ... If you can spend enough time playing other people, you don't have to think too much about your own character and motivations.

Besides, I can't get to where I want to go by conscious or unconscious suicide. I've got my strange little life to lead. Leading it the best I can - that's how I buy the ticket to where I want to be.

Unreason is an essential medicine as long as you do not overdose.

Although she had resisted this knowledge all her life, had lived determinedly in the future focused there by ambition, she understood at last that this was the real condition of humanity: The dance of life occurred not yesterday or tomorrow, but only here at the still point that was the present. This truth is simmple, sel-evident, but difficult to accept, for we sentimentalize the past and wallow in it, while we endure the moment and in every waking hour dream of the future.

I know it's hard being a single mother baby, he said, but we're talking fundamentals here. Homemade cookies are one of the best parts of christmas. It's an absolute fundamental.

If you write with passion in your own style, you will make a place for yourself

I fell in love with her for her sense of humour. If she ever lost her sense of humour, I would have to dump her. Then I'd kill myself because I couldn't live without her.

Home was not a perfect place. But it was the only home they had and they could hope to make it better.

I am sustained by the certainty that life has meaning...as does death.

If your work is deathwork, one weapon is not enough, just as a plumber would not answer an urgent service call with a single wrench.

Evil men often easy to mislead, because they have spent so long deceiving that they no longer recognise the truth and mistake deseption for it.

The broom wasn't as comforting as a flamethrower would have been, but it was better than a mop and certainly more threatening than a feather duster.

I've a long list of things I don't know how I've done, but I've done them. In the end, it's always about perseverance.

Behind every closed door might wait a thief of minds and a collector of souls.

Life's mysterious, strange, and full of wonders - and only a fool withdraws from it willingly and lets it pass him by.

Whiskers of the cat, Webbed toes on my swimming dog; God is in the details.

Recognizing the structure of your psychology doesn't mean that you can easily rebuild it.

I'll sit in the park and feed the pigeons for a while.' We don't have pigeons.' Then I'll feed the pterodactyls.

From time to time, I do consider that I might be mad. Like any self-respecting lunatic, however, I am always quick to dismiss any doubts about my sanity.

All I asked was that I be spared surprises, although, in this world of six billion souls, all acting with free will and too many with audacity, surprises are inevitable, too few of them are the kind that make you smile and that lift your heart.

We wasn't born to be all the time scared, we was born happy.

I'm no more a wonder than anyone. And that's what makes the world magical. Every baby's a seed of wonder - that gets watered or it doesn't.

One of the underlying things I like to do in books, is just say, stop and look at this for a moment. Not that you've got to believe that Jesus was real, or not to believe in God, but the belief that it isn't just happenstance.

its a rare thing to know one completly to the core and stil love him

A plot without action is like pasta without garlic, like Dolly Parton without cleavage, and like a writer without his similes.

That is, Jack thought, the way of life. The horror changes us, because we can never forget. Cursed with memory. It starts when we're old enough to know what death is and realize that sooner or later we'll lose everyone we love. We're never the same. But somehow we're all right. We go on.

Although the constant shadow of certain death looms over everyday, the pleasures and joys of life can be so fine and affecting that the heart is nearly stilled in astonishment.

To a predator, fear indicates weakness.