Dean Koontz
What really holds their marriage together are mutual respect of an awesome depth, a shared sense of humor, faith that they were brought together by a force greater than themselves, and a love so unwavering and pure that it is sacred.Collection: Love
Pain is all I know." He murmured. "Peace is all I wantCollection: Pain
We are not born to wait. We are born to do.Collection: Waiting
Pain is a gift. Humanity, without pain, would know neither fear nor pity.Collection: Pain
We need to laugh at the irrationality of evil, for in doing so we deny evil's power over us, diminish its influence in the world, and tarnish the allure it has for some people.Collection: People
Only the human spirit can act with volition and consciously change itself; it is the only thing in all creation that is not entirely at the mercy of forces outside itself.Collection: Spirit
Blizzards, floods, volcanos, hurricanes, earthquakes: They fascinate because they nakedly reveal that Mother Nature, afflicted with bipolar disorder, is as likely to snuff us as she is to succor us.Collection: Mother
In a clutch or a corner, I tend to make a weapon out of what is near at hand. That can be anything from a crowbar to a cat, though if I had a choice, I would prefer an angry cat, which I have found to be more effective than a crowbar. Although weaponless, I left the house by the back door, with two chocolate-pumpkin cookies. It's a tough world out there, and a man has to armor himself against it however he can. ~Odd ThomasCollection: Cat
In the belly of Leviathan ... one can either despair and perish, or be cheerful and persevere.Collection: Despair
Please, don't torture me with cliches. If you're going to try to intimidate me, have the courtesy to go away for a while, acquire a better education, improve your vocabulary, and come back with some fresh metaphors.Collection: Vocabulary
Some people misunderstand evil and believe it will relent, and because their misplaced hope inspires dark hearts to dream darker dreams, they are the fathers and mothers of all wars. Evil does not relent; it must be defeated. And even when defeated, uprooted, and purified by fire, evil leaves behind a seed that will one day germinate and, in blooming, again be misunderstood.Collection: Mother
Life is a train ride, and at the many stations along the route, people important to us debark, never to get aboard again, until by the end of the journey, we sit in a passenger car where most of the seats are empty.Collection: Journey
Every human being has appetites difficult to control but far fewer have humility, gentleness, and an awareness of their weaknesses.Collection: Humility
The process, not the final achievement, is what it's all about.Collection: Achievement
You've taught me that we're all needed, even those who sometimes think we're worthless, plain and dull. If we love and allow ourselves to be loved...well, a person who loves is the most precious thing in the world, worth all the fortunes that ever were. That's what you've taught me, fur face,and because of you I'll never be the same.Collection: Love Is
A man begins dying at the moment of his birth. Most People live in denial of Death's patient courtship until, late in life and deep in sickness, they become aware of him sitting bedside.Collection: Death
A long walk and grooming with a well-mannered dog is a Zen experience that leaves you refreshed and in a creative frame of mind.Collection: Dog
We may lack riches, but the greatest fortune is what lies in our hearts.Collection: Lying
It will all be better in the end and if it is not better then it must not be the end yetCollection: Ends
We yearn for tomorrow and the progress that it represents. But yesterday was once tomorrow, and where was progress in it? Or we yearn for yesterday, for what was or what might have been. But as we are yearning, the present is becoming the past, so the past is nothing but our yearning for second chances.Collection: Past
Of all the things we can feel with our minds and bodies, severe pain is the purest, for it drives everything else from our awareness and focuses us as perfectly as we can ever be focused.Collection: Pain
We are buried when we're born. The world is a place of graves occupied and graves potential. Life is what happens while we wait for our appointment with the mortician.Collection: Life
If we were capable of thinking of everything, we would still be living in Eden, rent-free with all-you-can-eat buffets and infinitely better daytime TV programming.Collection: Thinking
Each book is a mind alive, a life revealed, a world awaiting exploration, but living people are all those things, as well—and more, because their stories haven’t yet been completely told.Collection: Book
The recognition of pain and fear in others give rise in us to pity, and in our pity is our humanity, our redemption.Collection: Pain
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.Collection: Love
Maybe I'm needy, neurotic, paranoid. Under the circumstances, of course, if I weren't needy, neurotic, and paranoid, I'd obviously be psychotic.Collection: Depression
Home is the first refuge from - and last defense against - the disappointments and the terrors of life.Collection: Family
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.Collection: Choices
...in an infinite universe, anything that could be imagined might somewhere exist.Collection: Might
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.Collection: Motivational
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.Collection: Suicide
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 worldCollection: Differences
In the real world as in dreams nothing is quite what it seems. -The Book of Counted SorrowsCollection: Dream
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.Collection: Kindness
As an attorney, I assure you the law isn't a line engraved in marble, immovable and unchangeable through the centuries. Rather the law is like a string, fixed at both ends but with a great deal of play in it very loose, the line of the law so you can stretch it this way or that, rearrange the arc of it so you are nearly always short of blatant theft or cold-blooded murder safely on the right side. That's a daunting thing to realize but true.Collection: Law
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.Collection: Baby
He felt ... a suspicion-no, a conviction-than he had been abandoned, forgotten, and that no one in the whole world cared or would ever care enough about him to really find out what he was like and what his dreams were. He was an outcast, a creature somehow vastly different from all other people, an object of scorn and derision, an outsider, secretly loathed and ridiculed by everyone who met him, even by those few who professed to love him.Collection: Dream
Night has patterns that can be read less by the living than by the dead.Collection: Night
One door away from heaven And the key is ours to lose. One door away from heaven But oh, the entry dues.Collection: Keys
What has been is no more. Change has come.Collection: Has Beens
What doesn't quicken dies. That's an indisputable truth of life.Collection: Truth Of Life
Imagine that you are more than nothing. Evil made you, but you are no more evil than a child unborn. If you want, if you seek, if you hope, who is to say that your hope might not be answered?Collection: Children
The truth was stranger than the official fiction.Collection: Fiction
I'm alive but I have no life. I'm alive but also dead. I'm dead and alive.Collection: Alive
In the wind, the trees, like agitated lions preparing to roar, shook their great green manes.Collection: Wind
I believe in the possibility of miracles but, more to the point, I believe in our need for them.Collection: Believe
One of the greatest gifts we receive from dogs is the tenderness they evoke in us. The disappointments of life, the injustices, the battering events that are beyond our control, and the betrayals we endure, from those we befriended and loved, can make us cynical and turn our hearts into flint – on which only the matches of anger and bitterness can be struck into flame. By their delight in being with us, the reliable sunniness of their disposition, the joy they bring to playtime, the curiosity with which they embrace each new experience, dogs can melt cynicism,and sweeten the bitter heart.Collection: Dog