Dean Koontz Quotes

“None of us can ever save himself; we are the instruments of one another’s salvation, and only by the hope that we give to others do we lift ourselves out of the darkness into light.”

“I have learned a great deal from novels. Some of it is even true.”

“In each little life, we can see great truth and beauty, and in each little life we glimpse the way of all things in the universe. If we alow ourselves to be enchanted by the beauty of the ordinary, we begin to see that all things extraordinary.”

“In a crunch a man's reputation never counts for as much as it ought to. Most people are good-hearted and willing to give a man the benefit of the doubt, but the poisonous few are eager to see others brought down, ruined. … Envy, Bob. Envy eats them alive. If you had money, they'd envy you that. But since you don't, they envy you for having such a good, bright, loving daughter. They envy you for just being a happy man. They envy you for not envying them. One of the greatest sorrows of human existence is that some people aren't happy merely to be alive but find their happiness only in the misery of others.”

“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.”

“Being polite is not only the right way to respond to people but also the easiest. Life is so filled with unavoidable conflict that I see no reason to promote more confrontations.”

“Lies hurt people; imagination makes life more fun.”

“To many people, free will is a license to rebel not against what is unjust or hard in life but against what is best for them and true.”

“Bad people succeed and good people fail, but that's not the end of the story. Miracles happen that nobody sees, and among us walk heroes who are never recognized, and people live in loneliness because they cannot believe they are loved.”

“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.”

“You can con God and get away with it, Granny said, if you do so with charm and wit. If you live your life with imagination and verve, God will play along just to see what outrageously entertaining thing you'll do next.”

“Change isn't easy. Changing the way you live means changing the way you think, means changing what you believe about life. That's hard.”

“Once you have had a wonderful dog, a life without one, is a life diminished.”

“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.”

“No, if there's any ultimate redemption, it would be because I passed though your life without scarring you, and did not diminish who you are.”

“Petting, scratching, and cuddling a dog could be as soothing to the mind and heart as deep meditation and almost as good for the soul as prayer.”

“She was fascinated with words. To her, words were things of beauty, each like a magical powder or potion that could be combined with other words to create powerful spells.”

“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.”

“Humanity is a parade of fools, and I am at the front of it, twirling a baton.”

“Where there's cake, there's hope. And there's always cake.”

“If one's friends do not openly laugh at him, they are not in fact his friends.”

“If we were always conscious of the fact that people precious to us are frighteningly mortal, hanging not even by a thread, but by a wisp of gossamer, perhaps we would be kinder to them and more grateful for the love and friendship they give to us.”

“There are no explanations for human evil. Only excuses.”

“When we hope, we usually hope for the wrong thing.”

“Stay low, stay quiet, keep it simple, don't expect too much, enjoy what you have.”

“As long as I have laughter, I am not without hope”

“Life, Stormy says, is not about how fast you run or even with what degree of grace. It's about perseverance, about staying on your feet and slogging forward no matter what.”

“Given my heritage and the ordeal of my childhood, I sometimes wonder why I myself am not insane. Maybe I am.”

“We have a responsibility to stand watch over one another, we are watchers, all of us, watchers, guarding against the darkness.”

“The heart is an artist that paints over what profoundly disturbs it, leaving on the canvas a less dark, less sharp version of the truth.”

“I'm small, I'm young - and I'm so different. You've always respected that difference, and you've always trusted it. Trust me now. There's a reason I am the way I am, and there's a reason I was born to you. There's always a reason. We belong together.”

“Even in the darkest moments, light exists if you have faith to see it.”

“We are not strangers to ourselves, we only try to be.”

“On the Road that I have taken, one day walking I awaken, amazed to see where I've come, where I'm going, where I'm from.”

“No one can grant you happiness. Happiness is a choice we all have the power to make.”

“Human beings are such knotted, desperate pieces of work-it's a rare thing to know one completely, to the core, and still love him.”

“If dogs talked, one of them would be president by now. Everybody likes dogs.”

“It will all be better in the end and if it is not better then it must not be the end yet”

“Books were this wonderful escape for me because I could open a book and disappear into it, and that was the only way out of that house when I was a kid.”

“In self-defense and in defense of the innocent, cowardice is the only sin.”

“… in an infinite universe, anything that could be imagined might somewhere exist.”

“Every life is complicated, every mind a kingdom of unmapped mysteries.”

“Now take my hand and hold it tight.
I will not fail you here tonight,
For failing you, I fail myself
And place my soul upon a shelf
In Hell's library without light.
I will not fail you here tonight.”

“In this world only the paranoid survive.”

“Nothing is worse than being alone on the evening of the day when one's cow has exploded.”

“When we make our own misery we sometimes cling to it even when we want so bad to change, because misery is something we know. The misery is comfortable.”

“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.”

“The most identifying trait of humanity is our abilty to be inhumane to one another.”

“Darkness dwells within even the best of us. In the worst of us, darkness not only dwells but reins.”

“Fate isn’t one straight road…there are forks in it, many different routes to different ends. We have the free will to choose the path.”

“I'm alive but I have no life. I'm alive but also dead. I'm dead and alive.”

“Fear is a poison produced by the mind, and courage is the antidote stored always ready in the soul”

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

“A fine line separates the weary recluse from the fearful hermit. Finer still is the line between hermit and bitter misanthrope.”

“Most people tend to think the best of those who are blessed with beauty; we have difficulty imagining that physical perfection can conceal twisted emotions or a damaged mind.”

“Loss is the hardest thing, I said. But it's also the teacher that's the most difficult to ignore.”

“I am no theologian. I would not be surprised, however, if Heaven proved to be a cozy kitchen, where delicious treats appeared in the oven and in the refrigerator whenever you wanted them, and where the cupboards were full of good books.”

“Alliteration seems to offend people.”

“I am twenty years old. To a world-wise adult, I am little more than a child. To any child, however, I am old enough to be distrusted, to be excluded forever from the magical community of the short and beardless.”

“Hunches [are] just messages from the subconscious, which [is] thinking furiously all the time and processing information we have not consciously noted.”

“Maybe when all was said and done, the imagination was the most powerful of all weapons. It was the imagination of the human race that had allowed it to dream of a life beyond cold caves and of a possible future in the stars.”

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

“Too much mystery is merely an annoyance. Too much adventure is exhausting. And a little terror goes a long way.”

“… I felt fear enter the halls of my mind, but I didn't give it the keys to every room.”

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

“Inaction counted as a choice.”