Dean Koontz: Trending quotes

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Dean Koontz: 314 quotes8 likes

“Dylan… said, "Both Becky and Kenny need medical attention—"
"And a prison cell until their social security kicks in," Jilly added.
"—but give us two or three minutes before you call 9-1-1," Dylan finished.
This instruction baffled Marj. "But you are 9-1-1."
Jilly fielded that peculiar question: "We're one of the ones, Marj, but we're not the other one or the nine."”

Dean Koontz book By the Light of the Moon

after Dylan & Jilly (who had claimed to be an undercover policewoman) save Marj and her grandson from homicidal teenagers
By the Light of the Moon (2002)

“… mankind has no right to employ its genius in the creation of another intelligent species, then treat it like property. If we've come so far that we can create as God creates, then we have to learn to act with the justice and mercy of God.”

Dean Koontz book Watchers

Part 1, Chapter 7.8; Garrison Dilworth on the responsibility to help keep Einstein free
Watchers (1987)

“Pain is a gift. Humanity, without pain, would know neither fear nor pity. Without fear, there could be no humility, and every man would be a monster. The recognition of pain and fear in others give rise in us to pity, and in our pity is our humanity, our redemption.”

Dean Koontz book Velocity

Source: Velocity (2005), Chapter 54

“There's lots of law these days, but not much justice. Celebrities murder their wives and go free. A mother kills her children, and the news people on TV say she's the victim and want you to send money to her lawyers. When everything's upside down like this, what fool just sits back and thinks justice will prevail?”

Dean Koontz book One Door Away from Heaven

Geneva Davis; chapter 60, p. 473
One Door Away from Heaven (2001)

“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.”

Dean Koontz book The Taking

Part 1, Chapter 1
The Taking (2004)

“You've got to stay sharp, on your toes, alert. Always look over your shoulder. Always protect yourself. Don't let your guard down for even a second. There are people who will take advantage of you the moment they see you're not in control. The world's filled with people like that. Nearly everyone you meet is like that. We're animals in a jungle, and we've got to be prepared to fight if we want to survive. You can't trust hardly anyone, hardly anyone at all. Even people who are supposed to like you can turn on you faster than you think. Even friends. People who say they love you are the worst, the most dangerous, the most untrustworthy of all. People who say they love you will pounce when they get the chance. You gotta always remember that they're just waiting for the opportunity to get you. Love's a trick. A cover. A way to catch you off guard. Never let down your guard. Never.”

Dean Koontz book The Voice of the Night

Roy Borden, p. 53
The Voice of the Night (1980)

“For most of her existence, Molly had not shied from a truth that most people understood but diligently suppressed: that every moment of every day, depending on the faith we embrace, each of us continues to live either by the merciful sufferance of God or at the whim of blind chance and indifferent nature.”

Dean Koontz book The Taking

Part 1, Chapter 2
The Taking (2004)

“… less real than such threats as a man with a gun, a woman with a knife, or a U. S. Senator with an idea.”

Dean Koontz book Brother Odd

Source: Brother Odd (2006), Chapter 38

“In this uncertain space between birth and death, especially here at the end of the world in Moonlight Bay, we need hope as surely as we need food and water, love and friendship. The trick, however, is to remember that hope is a perilous thing, that it's not a steel and concrete bridge across the void between this moment and a brighter future. Hope is no stronger than tremulous beads of dew strung on a filament of spider web, and it alone can't long support the terrible weight of an anguished mind and a tortured heart.”

Dean Koontz book Seize the Night

Source: Seize the Night (1999), Chapter 4; musings of Christopher Snow

“Experts must read the patterns and judge their usefulness as evidence. Under any of numerous pressures, an expert may wish to misread a pattern or even to alter it. Americans had a touching trust in "experts."”

Dean Koontz book The Good Guy

Krait musing about fingerprints
Source: The Good Guy (2007), Chapter 21, p. 147

“In fact I am such a nonentity by the standards of our culture that People magazine not only will never feature a piece about me but might also reject my attempts to subscribe to their publication on the grounds that the black-hole gravity of my noncelebrity is powerful enough to suck their entire enterprise into oblivion.”

Dean Koontz Odd Thomas

Source: Odd Thomas (2003), Chapter 1; Odd Thomas's introduction

“In a world that daily disconnects further from truth, more and more people accept the virtual in place of the real, and all things virtual are also malleable.”

Dean Koontz book The Good Guy

Krait's musings
Source: The Good Guy (2007), Chapter 21, p. 147

“Sheep were docile, yes, but vigilant. Unlike many people, sheep were always aware that predators existed and were alert for the scent and the schemes of wolves.
Contemporary Americans were so proseperous, so happily distracted by such a richness of vivid entertainments, they were reluctant to have their fun diminished by acknowledging that anything existed with fangs and fierce appetites. If now and then they recognized a wolf, they threw a bone to it and convinced themselves it was a dog.”

Dean Koontz book The Good Guy

Krait's musings
Source: The Good Guy (2007), Chapter 7, pp. 52-53

“My name is Odd Thomas, though in this age when fame is the altar at which most people worship, I am not sure why you should care who I am or that I exist.”

Dean Koontz Odd Thomas

Source: Odd Thomas (2003), Chapter 1; Odd Thomas's introduction

“When you're as hollow as Enoch Kane, the emptiness aches. He's desperate to fill it, but he doesn't have the patience or the commitment to fill it with anything worthwhile… So a man like Kane obsesses on one thing after another — sex, money, food, power, drugs, alcohol — anything that seems to give meaning to his days, but that requires no real self-discovery or self-sacrifice.”

Dean Koontz book From the Corner of His Eye

Source: From the Corner of His Eye (2000), Chapter 64; words of former policeman Thomas Vanadium

“Maybe Nina wouldn't have died if I hadn't moved in with them and drawn Sheener after me, but I can't feel guilty about that. I tried hard to be a good foster daughter to them, and they were happy with me. What happened was that life dropped a big custard pie on us, and that's not my fault; you can never see the custard pies coming. It's not good slapstick if you see the pie coming."
"Custard pie?" he asked, perplexed. "You see life as a slapstick comedy? Like the Three Stooges?"
"Partly."
"Life is just a joke then?"
"No. Life is serious and a joke at the same time."
"But how can that be?”

Dean Koontz book Lightning

"If you don't know," she said, "maybe I should be the one asking the questions here."
Part I, Chapter 2.10, dialog between 12-year-old Laura Shane and a psychotherapist after the death of her foster mother
Lightning (1988)

“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.”

Dean Koontz book Watchers

Part 1, Chapter 7.8; Garrison Dilworth reassuring the Cornells during their flight
Watchers (1987)

“When we don't allow ourselves to hope, we don't allow ourselves to have purpose. Without purpose, without meaning, life is dark. We've no light within, and we're just living to die.”

Dean Koontz book From the Corner of His Eye

Source: From the Corner of His Eye (2000), Chapter 41; words of Agnes Lampion

“Fric had been assigned the dumbest of the standard tones, which the phone manufacturer described as "a cheerful, child-pleasing sound suitable for the nursery or the bedrooms of younger children." Why infants in nurseries or toddlers in cribs ought to have their own telephones remained a mystery to Fric. Were they going to call Babies R Us and order lobster-flavored teething rings?”

Dean Koontz book The Face

Source: The Face (2003), Chapter 13; describing the estate's elaborate phone system

“Bobby noticed two colorful charts posted on the wall near the refrigerator. The first displayed each kid's grades and major test results since the start of the school year in September. The other was a list of household chores for which each child was responsible. … Some attributed Asian-Americans' success to a conspiracy, but Bobby saw the simple explanation for their achievements everywhere in the Phan house: They tried harder. They embraced the ideals upon which the country had been based — including hard work, honesty, goal-oriented self-denial, and the freedom to be whatever one wanted to be. Ironically, their great success was partly due to the fact that so many born Americans had become cynical about those same ideals.”

Dean Koontz book The Bad Place

Source: The Bad Place (1990), Chapter 32