Background Image

...

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.

-Dean Koontz

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

All I Asked Was

Dean Koontz

...

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.

Views: 8

Topic

More From Dean Koontz

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.

Unreason Is An Essential Medicine As Long As You Do Not Overdose.

When New Hopes Fail, Old Hopes Return In The Endless Cycle Of Desperation.

Fire, Ice, Asteroids And Pole Shifts Are Bogeymen With Which We Distract Ourselves From The Real Threat Of Our Time. In An Age When Everyone Invents His Own Truth, There Is No Community, Only Factions. Without Community, There Can Be No Consensus To Resist The Greedy, The Envious, The Power-mad Narcissists Who Seize Control And Turn The Institutions Of Civilization Into A Series Of Doom Machines.

But Once An Idea For A Novel Seizes A Writer...well, It’s Like An Inner Fire That At First Warms You And Makes You Feel Good But Then Begins To Eat You Alive, Burn You Up From Within. You Can’t Just Walk Away From The Fire; It Keeps Burning. The Only Way To Put It Out Is To Write The Book.

Not All Or Even Most Suffering Is At The Hands Of Fate; It Befalls Us At Our Invitation.

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

Bunny Slippers Remind Me Of Who I Am.you Can't Get A Swelled Head If You Wear Bunny Slippers. You Can't Lose Your Sense Of Perspective And Start Acting Like A Star Or A Rich Lady If You Keep On Wearing Bunny Slippers. Besides, Bunny Slippers Give Me Confidence Because They're So Jaunty. They Make A Statement; They Say, 'nothing The World Does To Me Can Ever Get Me So Far Down That I Can't Be Silly And Frivolous.

All But Universally, Human Architecture Values Front Elevations Over Back Entrances, Public Spaces Over Private. Danny Jessup Says That This Aspect Of Architecture Is Also A Reflection Of Human Nature, That Most People Care More About Their Appearance Than They Do About Their Souls.

I've Always Operated With A Great Deal Of Self-doubt. Every Time I Start A New Book It's Like, Well, This One Will Destroy The Career And I Have To Overcome That Feeling Especially In The First Hundred Pages Of The Book.

Anger Is A Violent Emotion, Vindictive, And As Dangerous To He Who Is Driven By It As To Anyone On Whom It Is Turned.

When Life Hands Us A Beutiful Bouquet Of Flowers We Stare At It In Cautious Expectation Of A Bee.

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.

Intuition Is Seeing With The Soul.

Night Has Patterns That Can Be Read Less By The Living Than By The Dead.

His Blue Eyes Were Seas Where Sorrow Sailed.

No One's Life Should Be Rooted In Fear. We Are Born For Wonder, For Joy, For Hope, For Love, To Marvel At The Mystery Of Existence, To Be Ravished By The Beauty Of The World, To Seek Truth And Meaning, To Acquire Wisdom, And By Our Treatment Of Others To Brighten The Corner Where We Are.

There's Sometimes A Weird Benefit To Having An Alcoholic, Violent Father. He Really Motivated Me In That I Never Wanted To Be Anything Like Him.

Truth Is Always Stranger Than Fiction. We Craft Fiction To Match Our Sense Of How Things Ought To Be, But Truth Cannot Be Crafted. Truth Is, And Truth Has A Way Of Astonishing Us To Our Knees. Reminding Us, That The Universe Does Not Exist To Fulfill Our Expectations. Because We Are Imperfect Beings Who Are Self-blinded To The Truth Of The World’s Stunning Complexity, We Shave Reality To Paper Thin Theories And Ideologies That We Can Easily Grasp – And We Call Them Truths. But The Truth Of A Sea In All It’s Immensity Cannot Be Embodied In One Tidewashed Pebble.

Reality Isn't What It Used To Be.

We Live In God's Amusement Park.

Amusement Parks

I Survive By Finding The Sweet Spot Between Reason And Unreason, Between The Rational And Irrational.

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.

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.

He Said, If You Allow Yourself To Be Enchanted By The Beauty To Be Seen In Even Ordinary Things, Then All Things Proved To Be Extraordinary.

...like A Scene From The Swamps Of Louisiana Or The Mind Of Poe On Opium.

Out Of Sight Above The House, The Mirror Moon Reflected The Sun Of A Day Not Yet Dawned, Shining The Pale Light Of Tomorrow On The Yard And On The Paper Birches.

Without Trust, There Can Be No Tranquil Resting Of The Mind.

When I'm In The Middle Of A Book It Can Go Up From There. When You're Putting In Those Hours, The Real World Kind Of Fades And The World You're Creating Becomes Almost More Real To You Than The Outside World.

Although I've Said A Million Times That I'm Not A Horror Writer, I Do Like Horror.

Every Expression Of Desired Friendship Has Potential Bite. Every Smile Reveals The Teeth.

There Are Days When It Seems To Me That In Literature The Most Convincing Depiction Of The World In Which We Live Is To Be Found In The Phantasmagorical Kingdom Through Which Lewis Carroll Took Alice On A Tour.

As Long As I Have Laughter, I Am Not Without Hope

That's All That Matters, Really: That We Can Make Each Other Feel Better.

I Never Discuss A Novel While I'm Writing It, For Fear That Talking About It Will Diminish My Desire To Write It.

Do As Little Harm To Others As You Can; Make Any Sacrifice For Your True Friends; Be Responsible For Yourself And Ask Nothing Of Others; And Grab All The Fun You Can. Don't Give Much Thought To Yesterday, Don't Worry About Tomorrow, Live In The Moment, And Trust That Your Existence Has Meaning Even When The World Seems To Be All Blind Chance And Chaos. When Life Lands A Hammer Blow In Your Face, Do Your Best To Respond To The Hammer As If It Had Been A Cream Pie.

We May Lack Riches, But The Greatest Fortune Is What Lies In Our Hearts.

A Good Dog Is One Of The Best Things Of All To Be.

Vladimir Nabokov Said The Two Great Evils Of The 20th Century Were Marx And Freud. He Was Absolutely Correct.

Given Enough Time, You Could Convince Yourself That Loneliness Was Something Better, That It Was Solitude, The Ideal Condition For Reflection, Even A Kind Of Freedom. Once You Were Thus Convinced, You Were Foolish To Open The Door And Let Anyone In, Not All The Way In. You Risked The Hard-won Equilibrium, That Tranquility That You Called Peace

Civilization Rests On The Fact That Most People Do The Right Thing Most Of The Time.

If I Drive Myself To The Brink Of My Ability, Then I Don't Get Stale Or Bored.

I Have More Self-doubt Than Any Writer I've Ever Known.... The Positive Aspect Of Self-doubt - If You Can Channel It Into Useful Activity Instead Of Being Paralyzed By It - Is That By The Time You Reach The End Of A Novel, You Know Precisely Why You Made Every Decision In The Narrative, The Multiple Purposes Of Every Metaphor And Image.

We Must Seize Life Because We Never Know How Much Of It Remains For Us, That Faith Is The Antidote To Despair And That Laughter Is The Music Of Faith.

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.

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.

Authors Of So-called 'literary' Fiction Insist That Action, Like Plot, Is Vulgar And Unworthy Of A True Artist. Don't Pay Any Attention To Misguided Advice Of That Sort. If You Do, You Will Very Likely Starve Trying To Live On Your Writing Income. Besides, The Only Writers Who Survive The Ages Are Those Who Understand The Need For Action In A Novel.

If I Waited Until I Felt Creative, I Would Never Have Had A Career. I Long Ago Learned That A Day That Starts Out Badly, When Nothing Comes Out On The Page Or Comes Out Wrong, Can Suddenly Turn Into A Good Day A Few Hours Later, When Suddenly Everything Starts To Click. The Brain Can Be Cajoled Into Being Creative.

Holy Men Tell Us Life Is A Mystery. They Embrace That Concept Happily. But Some Mysteries Bite And Bark And Come To Get You In The Dark.

It's Only Life. We All Get Through It.

No Matter How Close We Are To Another Person, Few Human Relationships Are As Free From Strife, Disagreement, And Frustration As Is The Relationship You Have With A Good Dog. Few Human Beings Give Of Themselves To Another As A Dog Gives Of Itself. I Also Suspect That We Cherish Dogs Because Their Unblemished Souls Make Us Wish - Consciously Or Unconsciously - That We Were As Innocent As They Are, And Make Us Yearn For A Place Where Innocence Is Universal And Where The Meanness, The Betrayals, And The Cruelties Of This World Are Unknown.

Human Cruelty And Treachery Surpassed All Understanding. There Were No Answers. Only Excuses.

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.

Language Can't Describe Reality. Literature Has No Stable Reference, No Real Meaning. Each Reader's Interpretation Is Equally Valid, More Important Than The Author's Intention. In Fact, Nothing In Life Has Meaning. Reality Is Subjective. Values And Truths Are Subjective. Life Itself Is A Kind Of Illusion. Blah, Blah, Blah, Let's Have Another Scotch.

Houses Are Not Haunted. We Are Haunted, And Regardless Of The Architecture With Which We Surround Ourselves, Our Ghosts Stay With Us Until We Ourselves Are Ghosts.

All Human Lives Are So Profoundly And Intricately Entwined-those Dead, Those Living, Those Generations Yet To Come-that The Fate Of All Is The Fate Of Each, And The Hope Of Humanity Rests In Every Heart And In Every Pair Of Hands.

In Real Life During The Last Decade Of The Twentieth Century, Rumpelstiltskin Would Probably Get The Queen's Daughter. He Would No Doubt Addict Her To Heroin, Turn Her Out As A Prostitute, Confiscate Her Earnings, Beat Her For Pleasure, Hack Her To Pieces, And Escape Justice By Claiming That Society's Intolerance For Bad-tempered, Evil-minded Trolls Had Driven Him Temporarily Insane.

Maybe The Devil In Human Beings Isn't The Reflection Of The Devil, Perhaps The Devil Is Only A Reflection Of The Savagery And Brutality Of Our Kind. Maybe What We've Done Is Create The Devil In Our Own Image

Like All Of Us In This Storm Between Birth And Death, I Can Wreak No Great Changes On The World, Only Small Changes For The Better, I Hope, In The Lives Of Those I Love.

I'll Sit In The Park And Feed The Pigeons For A While.' We Don't Have Pigeons.' Then I'll Feed The Pterodactyls.

The World Is A Very Complex And Interesting Place And That Is What I Really Want My Fiction To Say: Wake Up To How Amazing The World Is.

If Dogs Talked, One Of Them Would Be President By Now. Everybody Likes Dogs.

The Worst Happens When You Least Expect It

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.

Pure, Hard-core Liberals Believe In A Superior Race. They Think They're It. They Believe They're More Intelligent Than The General Run Of Mankind, Better Suited Than The Little People Are To Manage The Little People's Lives. They Think They Have The One True Vision, The Ability To Solve All The Moral Dilemmas Of The Century. They Prefer Big Government Because That Is The First Step To Totalitarianism, Toward Unquestioned Rule By The Elite. And Of Course They See Themselves As The Elite.

Ignorance Isn't Bliss, But Sometimes Ignorance Makes It Possible For Us To Sleep At Night.

A Scar Is Not Always A Flaw. Sometimes A Scar May Be Redemption Inscribed In The Flesh, A Memorial To Something Endured, To Something Lost.

When Things Are Baffling They Usually Don't Unbaffle Themselves.there's Just, You Know, A Certain Amount Of Baffling Stuff That Always, Like, Really Baffles You, And I've Found That It's Best To Accept Bafflement Whenever It Comes Along, And Then Move On.

... And She Had Worn Bitterness As Though It Were A Crown.

A Short-order Cook, Just Off Work, Makes Easy Tracking For Lions And Worse

I Would Not Cry. I Do Not Cry. How Bitter Do You Risk Becoming By Swallowing Too Many Tears?

Where There Is Cake, There Is Hope. And There Is Always Cake.

Behind Every Closed Door Might Wait A Thief Of Minds And A Collector Of Souls.

Books Had Shown Me, However, That All People Everywhere Wanted Their Lives To Have Purpose And Meaning. This Longing Was Universal.

Y'all Take Care Of Yourself Now... Strange And Interesting Friends Are Hard To Find.

Nothing Gives Us Courage More Readily Than The Desire To Avoid Looking Like A Damn Fool.

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.

The Problem With Movies And Books Is They Make Evil Look Glamorous, Exciting, When It's No Such Thing. It's Boring And It's Depressing And It's Stupid. Criminals Are All After Cheap Thrills And Easy Money, And When They Get Them, All They Want Is More Of The Same, Over And Over. They're Shallow, Empty, Boring People Who Couldn't Give You Five Minutes Of Interesting Conversation If You Had The Piss-poor Luck To Be At A Party Full Of Them. Maybe Some Can Be Monkey-clever, Some Of The Time, But They Aren't Hardly Ever Smart.

If You Write With Passion In Your Own Style, You Will Make A Place For Yourself

She Lived For Others, Her Heart Tuned To Their Anguish And Their Needs.

I've Got A Long List Of Books I Wish I'd Never Written-and I've Kept Them All Out Of Print For The Past 20 Years.

Hope, However, Isn't All That's Needed To Achieve Change. Hope Is A Hand Extended, But Two Hands Are Required To Be Pulled Out Of This Deep Hole. The Second Hand Was Faith.

In Self-defense And In Defense Of The Innocent, Cowardice Is The Only Sin.

The Dead Are Merely The Countrymen Of My Future.

The World Is Full Of Broken People. Splints, Casts, Miracle Drugs, And Time Can't Mend Fractured Hearts, Wounded Hearts, Wounded Minds, Torn Spirits.

The Geometry Of Judgment Is A Circle. Hate Is A Snake That Turns To Consume Itself From The Tail, A Circle That Diminishes To A Point, Then To Nothing. Pride Is Such A Snake, And Envy, And Greed. Love, However, Is A Hoop, A Wheel, That Rolls On Forever. We Are Rescued By Those Whom We Have Rescued. The Saved Become The Saviors Of Their Saviors.

The Whisper Of The Dusk Is Night Shedding Its Husk.

The Word Impossible Contains The Word Possible' What's That-- Some Zen Thing?' I Think Star Trek. Mr. Spock.

Sorrow Is Not A Raven Perched Persistently Above A Chamber Door. Sorrow Is A Thing With Teeth, And While In Time It Retreats, It Comes Back At The Whisper Of It's Name.

My Life Would Be Constrained By The Horror And Fierce Rage That My Appearance Inspired, But I Would Know Peace As Well As Fear, Tenderness As Well As Brutality, And Even Love In A Time Of Cruelty.

The Hard Rain Nailed The Night To The City.

Is Rule Of Thumb In Writing Game: If Story Requires Many Long Descriptions Of Smells So Vile That Will Give Reader Nausea, Is Not Likely To Find Publisher.

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.

My Life Has A Mysterious Purpose That I Don't Understand, And Day By Day, Conflict By Conflict, I Learn By Going Where I Have To Go.

My Wife Is My First Audience. She's A Tough Lady, So I Can't Say That I Ever Scare Her. Except, Of Course, When She Sees Me The Way I Look Before Breakfast.

Nothing Is Worse Than Being Alone On The Evening Of The Day When One's Cow Has Exploded.

Human Beings Can Always Be Relied Upon To Exert, With Vigor, Their God-given Right To Be Stupid.

In Tragedy And Despair, When An Endless Night Seems To Have Fallen, Hope Can Be Found In The Realization Taht The Companion Of Night Is Not Another Night, That The Companion Of Night Is Day, That Darkness Always Gives Way To Light, And That Death Rules Only Half Of Creation, Life The Other Half.

Sometimes, Life Seems To Have A Higher Meaning. Events Unfold In Uncanny Sequences. Long-forgotten Acquaintances Turn Up With News That Changes Lives. A Stranger Appears And Speaks A Few Words Of Wisdom, Solving A Previously Insoluble Problem, Or Something In A Recent Dream Transpires In Reality. Suddenly The Existence Of God Seems Confirmed.

I've Had Good Publishers And Bad Publishers, And You've Got To Learn When The Advice Is Sensible And When It's Not.

When Social Forces Press For The Rejection Of Age-old Truth, Then Those Who Reject It Will Seek Meaning In Their Own Truth. These Truths Will Rarely Be Truth At All; They Will Be Only Collections Of Personal Preferences And Prejudices.

On Those Occasions When He Had Killed In The Dark, He Later Needed To See His Victims' Faces Because, In Some Unlit Corner Of His Heart, He Half Expected To Find His Own Face Looking Up At Him, Ice-white And Dead-eyed. "deep Down," The Dream-victim Had Said, "you Know That You're Already Dead Yourself, Burnt Out Inside. You Realize That You Have Far More In Common With Your Victims After You've Killed Them Than Before.

Evil Itself May Be Relentless. I Will Grant You That, But Love Is Relentless Too. Friendship Is A Relentless Force. Family Is A Relentless Force. Faith Is Relentless Force. The Human Spirit Is Relentless, And The Human Heart Outlasts - And Can Defeat - Even The Most Relentless Force Of All, Which Is Time.

Fear Is A Poison Produced By The Mind, And Courage Is The Antidote Stored Always Ready In The Soul

I Try Not To Spend Too Much Time On Partisan Politics. Life's Too Short For That. I Don't Really Believe That There Have Been Many Human Problems Solved By Politics.

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 Thomas

I Have To Admit That When I Watch A Movie In Which There Is No Moral Context For The Violence - I Find That Offensive. I Think That's Potentially Damaging To Society.

Even As A Child, She Had Preferred Night To Day, Had Enjoyed Sitting Out In The Yard After Sunset, Under The Star-speckled Sky Listening To Frogs And Crickets. Darkness Soothed. It Softened The Sharp Edges Of The World, Toned Down The Too-harsh Colors. With The Coming Of Twilight, The Sky Seemed To Recede; The Universe Expanded. The Night Was Bigger Than The Day, And In Its Realm, Life Seemed To Have More Possibilities.

When I'm Working On A Novel, I Work 70-hour Weeks.

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.

Only Once In A Generation Does Anything As Fresh As A Vomiting Detective Come Along.

As Much As I've Produced It Looks To People Like I Must Have Written Quickly, But It Isn't That - Because I Put In In A Sixty- Or Seventy-hour Week.

Time Doesn’t, As Advertised, Heal All Wounds. Although The Wrenching Immediacy Of Grief Eventually Passed, The Settled Sorrow That Replaced It Might In Its Own Way Be Even More Intense.

It May Sound Strange, But When You're A Kid And You're In That Environment, For Some Reason For A Long Time You Think, When The Doors Are Closed In Other Houses, This Is What It's Like Everywhere. And Then At Some Point You Begin To Realize That Isn't True, And Books Were Really The Educational System That Showed Me That There Were Many Better And Different Ways To Live A Life.

Life's Mysterious, Strange, And Full Of Wonders - And Only A Fool Withdraws From It Willingly And Lets It Pass Him By.

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.

Maybe I'm Needy, Neurotic, Paranoid. Under The Circumstances, Of Course, If I Weren't Needy, Neurotic, And Paranoid, I'd Obviously Be Psychotic.

Pain Can Be Endured And Defeated Only If It Is Embraced. Denied Or Feared, It Grows.

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.

Its A Rare Thing To Know One Completly To The Core And Stil Love Him

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.

If You Have To Pay The Bills, And You Write Something You're Not Proud Of, Use A Pen-name For That.

I Don't Mean To Imply That I'm Afraid Of Death. I'm Just Not Ready To Go Out On A Date With Him.

I Enjoy The Hell Out Of Writing But Don't Like What Follows: Promotion And Publicity, Which I Always Strive To Keep To A Minimum, Sometimes To My Publisher's Dismay.

I Have Advice For New Writers, First Of All, At Any Time In The History Of Publishing In My Experience, There Will Be Endless Number People Telling You That You Can't Do What You Are Trying To Do. You Won't Succeed, There's Something Else You Should Be Doing.

Here In The Summer Desert, Winter Found My Blood

Life Packed A Clever One-two Punch: Cruelty And Absurdity.

What Most People Find Important, You Do Not. This Is Wisdom. To What You Believe Is Important, You Are Ready To Give Your Mind, Heart, And Soul. This Is Grace.

I Do Give Books As Gifts Sometimes, When People Would Rather Have One Than A New Ferrari.

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.

I See Dead People. But, Then By God, I Do Something About It!

People Couldn't Bear To Go On Living If They Faced Every Cold Truth About Themselves.

Doubt Is Poison. It Leads To A Loss Of Faith In Yourself, And In All That's Good And True.

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.

What Does Worry Accomplish Except To Breed More Worry?

Every Life Is Complicated, Every Mind A Kingdom Of Unmapped Mysteries.

Good Fences Make Good Neighbors, And These Were Apparently Good Enough That They Had Not Felt The Need For Razor Wire At The Top. I Crested The Fence, Threw Myself Into The Yard Beyond, Fell, Rolled To My Feet, And Ran With The Expectation Of Being Garroted By A Taut Clothesline. I Heard Panting, Looked Down, And Saw A Gold Retriever Running At My Side, Ears Flapping. The Dog Glanced Up At Me Tongue Rolling, Grinning, As Though Jazzed By The Prospect Of An Unscheduled Play Session.

When You Have Dogs, You Witness Their Uncomplaining Acceptance Of Suffering, Their Bright Desire To Make The Most Of Life In Spite Of The Limitations Of Age And Disease, Their Calm Awareness Of The Approaching End When Their Final Hours Come. They Accept Death With A Grace That I Hope I Will One Day Be Brave Enough To Muster.

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.

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.

I Don't Write A Quick Draft And Then Revise; Instead, I Work Slowly Page By Page, Revising And Polishing.

To A Predator, Fear Indicates Weakness.

Life Had Not Taught Me To Distrust Ministers, But It Had Taught Me To Trust No One More Than Dogs.

There Are No Explanations For Human Evil. Only Excuses.

This World, Which Has The Potential To Be Eden, Is Instead The Hell Before Hell. In Our Arrogance, We Have Made It So.

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.

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.

I Realized You Might Make Money At Writing, And You Might Even Make A Living At It. So After That I Didn't Write Stories Just For The Class But Wrote Them For The Purpose Of Submitting Them Somewhere, And At Some Point In The Process, I Began Writing Them Just To Please Myself And That's Where You Begin To See The Real Value Of A Life Of Writing.

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.

In This Age, Lies Were The Universal Lubricant Of The Culture. A Love Of Truth And Commitment To It Were Seldom Rewarded And Were Often Punished.

She'd Been Acutely Aware That Terror, Betrayal, And Cruelty Had A Human Face, But She Had Not Sufficiently Appreciated That Courage, Kindness, And Love Had A Human Face As Well.

Every Talent Is Unearned, However, And With It Comes A Solemn Obligation To Use It As Fully And As Wisely As Possible.

We Are Coming Out Of A Century That Was Taught That One Way Of Looking At The World, That One Form Of Behavior, Is As Valid As Another. The Idea Of True Evil Has Been Blown Away.

Much Of Her Life Had Been Lived Like A Balancing Act On A Spearpoint Fence, And On A Particularly Difficult Night When She Was Twelve, She Had Decided That Instinct Was, In Fact, The Quiet Voice Of God. Prayers Did Receive Replies, But You Had To Listen Closely And Believe In The Answer. At Twelve, She Wrote In Her Diary: "god Doesn't Shout; He Whispers, And In The Whisper Is The Way.

In The Belly Of Leviathan ... One Can Either Despair And Perish, Or Be Cheerful And Persevere.

Few Human Beings Give Of Themselves To Another As A Dog Gives Of Itself.

Loyal Companions Are An Unequaled Grace, Stanching Fear Before It Bleeds You Numb, A Reliable Antidote For Creeping Despair.

The Best Part Of A Mr. Goodbar Is Not The Wrapper, Is It? No, And The Best Part Of A Coke Is Not The Can. On Those Nights When You Lie Awake, Either Man Or Boy, Wondering About Yourself, Peeling Away One Layer Of Oddness After Another, You Should Remember And Always Be Grateful That The Woefully Imperfect Person That You Are, With All Your Contradictions And Unworthy Desires, Is Not The Best Of You, Any More Than The Wrapper Is The Best Part Of A Mr. Goodbar. -odd Thomas - Odd Apocalypse By Dean Koonts Pgs. 354-355 Chapter 53

I Receive About 10,000 Letters A Year From Readers, And In The First Year After A Book Is Published, Perhaps 5,000 Letters Will Deal Specifically With That Piece Of Work.

Your Sense Of Responsibility To Others Can Never Be Excessive.

Responsibility To Others

Sense Of Responsibility

Every World Has Dogs Or Their Equivalent, Creatures That Thrive On Companionship, Creatures That Are Of A High Order Of Intelligence Although Not The Highest And That Therefore Is Simple Enough In Their Wants And Needs To Remain Innocent. The Combination Of Their Innocence And Their Intelligence Allows Them To Serve As A Bridge Bewtween What Is Transient And What Is Eternal, Between The Finate And The Infinate.

Every Eye Sees Its Own Special Vision; Every Ear Hears A Most Different Song. In Each Man's Troubled Heart, An Incision Would Reveal A Unique, Shameful Wrong.

The Primitive In Each Of Us Climbs Closer To The Surface During The Night, For The Moon Sings To It, And The Cold Void Between The Stars Speaks Its Language. To That Savage Self, Evil Can Look Lovely In Too Little Light.

The Only Thing I Know For Sure Is How Much I Do Not Know.

In The Real World As In Dreams Nothing Is Quite What It Seems. -the Book Of Counted Sorrows

Writing A Novel Is Like Making Love, But It's Also Like Having A Tooth Pulled. Pleasure And Pain. Sometimes It's Like Making Love While Having A Tooth Pulled.

Even In The Darkest Moments, Light Exists If You Have The Faith To See It. Fear Is A Poison Produced By The Mind, And Courage Is The Antidote Stored Always In The Soul. In Misfortune Lies The Seed Of Future Triumph.

Books Showed Me That There Were Other Ways To Live A Life.

Each Smallest Act Of Kindness, Reverberates Across Great Distances And Spans Of Time --affecting Lives Unknown To The One Who’s Generous Spirit, Was The Source Of This Good Echo. Because Kindness Is Passed On And Grows Each Time It’s Passed Until A Simple Courtesy Becomes An Act Of Selfless Courage, Years Later, And Far Away. Likewise, Each Small Meanness, Each Expression Of Hatred, Each Act Of Evil.

I Always Thought Happiness Was A Choice And I Always Chose Things That Made Me Happy, And Books Were One Of Those.

Dare We Linger, Dare We Skate? Dare We Laugh Or Celebrate, Knowing We May Strain The Ice? Preserve The Ice At Any Price?

Only Time Conquers Time And Its Burdens.

Somebody Asked Me About The Current Choice We're Being Given In The Presidential Election. I Said, Well, It's Like Two Of The Scariest Movies I Can Imagine.

I've Since Discovered That Many Human Beings Need No Supernatural Mentoring To Commit Acts Of Savagery; Some People Are Devils In Their Own Right, Their Telltale Horns Having Grown Inward To Facilitate Their Disguise.

If God Is An Author And The Universe Is The Biggest Novel Ever Written, I May Feel As If I'm The Lead Character In The Story, But Like Every Man And Woman On Earth, I Am A Suporting Player In One Of Billions Of Subplots. You Know What Happens To Supporting Players. Too Often They Are Killed Off In Chapter 3, Or In Chapter 10, Or In Chapter 35. A Supporting Player Always Has To Be Looking Over His Shoulder.

Some Argued That The Youth Of Today Were Poorly Educated And Insufficiently Industrious, But One Of Them Had Sought To Validate His Generation By Spending Considerable Time And Effort Chiseling An Obscene Word In The Concrete Picnic Table, And He Had Spelled It Correctly.

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.

If I Had To Write A Rough Draft, All The Way Through And Then Go Back And Start Over, I Probably Would Just Stop Writing. I Wouldn't Find That Interesting. I Would Feel That I Had Committed So Many Things To The Paper That I Couldn't Easily Undo Because One Thing Leads To The Next, The Interconnectedness, The Sequences Would Make It Very Hard To Change Something That Simply Didn't Work.

Humanity Is A Parade Of Fools, And I Am At The Front Of It, Twirling A Baton.

I Build A Book The Way Coral Reefs Are Built: Millions Of Little Calcareous Skeletons Piling Up One Atop Another, Though In My Case The Skeletons Are Drafts.

When A Liar Became Too Skilled At Deception, He Could Lose The Ability To Discern Truth, And Could Himself Be More Easily Deceived.

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.

Between Birth And Burial, We Find Ourselves In A Comedy Of Mysteries. If You Don't Think Life Is Mysterious, If You Believe You Have It All Mapped Out, You Aren't Paying Attention Or You've Anesthetized Yourself With Booze Or Drugs, Or With A Comforting Ideology. And If You Don't Think Life's A Comedy - Well, Friend, You Might As Well Hurry Along To That Burial. The Rest Of Us Need People With Whom We Can Laugh. -odd Thomas -odd Apocalypse By Dean Koontz Pg 30 Chapter 4

One Of The Greatest Gifts We Receive From Dogs Is The Tenderness They Evoke In Us

Even In The Darkest Moments, Light Exists If You Have Faith To See It.

There's Never Any Humongous Next Draft. I Know A Writer Who Every Time He Finished A Novel - You Would Know His Name Very Well - But His Editor Would Come And Live With Him For A Month. And They Would Go Through The Manuscript Together.

I Believe That I Was A Dog In A Past Life. That's The Only Thing That Would Explain Why I Like To Snack On Purina Dog Chow.

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.

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.

What Has Been Is No More. Change Has Come.

Pain Is A Gift. Humanity, Without Pain, Would Know Neither Fear Nor Pity.

If Something In Your Writing Gives Support To People In Their Lives, That’s More Than Just Entertainment-w Hich Is What We Writers All Struggle To Do, To Touch People.

How Passionately We Love Everything That Cannot Last: The Dazzling Crystallory Of Winter, The Spring In Bloom, The Fragile Flight Of Butterflies, Crimson Sunsets, A Kiss, And Life.

Change Isn't Easy... Changing The Way You Live Means Changing What You Believe About Life. That's Hard... When We Make Our Own Misery, We Sometimes Cling To It Even When We Want So Bad To Change Because The Misery Is Something We Know. The Misery Is Comfortable.

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.

Love And Friendship

Best Thing That Can Happen To A Man Is A Good Woman.

No One Can Grant You Happiness. Happiness Is A Choice We All Have The Power To Make.

Happiness Is A Choice

Strangely Enough, For Many Many Years I Didn't Talk About My Childhood And Then When I Did I Got A Ton Of Mail - Literally Within A Year I Got A Couple Of Thousand Letters From People Who'd Had A Worse Childhood, A Similar Childhood, A Less-bad Childhood, And The Question That Was Most Often Posed To Me In Those Letters Was: How Did You Get Past The Trauma Of Being Raised By A Violent Alcoholic?

The Only Thing We Can't Buy More Of Is Time." She Said. "and Dodo Birds. We Can't Buy Any More Of Them. They're Extinct. And Dinosaurs.

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?

Trending Author

Martin Lawrence

Jonathan Franzen

Category