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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.

-Dean Koontz

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Although She Had Resisted

Dean Koontz

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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.

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Infinite Universe

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Are You Prepared For The First Wound?

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Thanks To The Circus Between My Ears, I Can Seize Upon The Smallest Disquieting Observation And From It Extrapolate A Terror Of Cataclysmic Proportions.

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

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We Are Not Born To Wait. We Are Born To Do.

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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

Only Time Conquers Time And Its Burdens.

I Believe That We Carry Within Us A Divinely Inspired Moral Imperative To Love ... We Have Within Us The Ability To Change For The Better And To Find Dignity As Individuals Rather Than As Drones In One Mass Movement Or Another. We Have The Ability To Love, The Need To Be Loved, And The Willingness To Put Our Own Lives On The Line To Protect Those We Love, And It Is In These Aspects Of Ourselves That We Can Glimpse The Face Of God; And Through The Exercise Of These Qualities, We Come To A Godlike State.

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.

Alliteration Seems To Offend People.

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

What Looks Tragic Might Be Comic On Second Consideration, And What Is Comic Might Bring Tears In Time.

I've Not Seen In My Lifetime Any Politician Who Is A Heroic Figure. The Manipulation That All Politicians Use On One Level Or Another Is So Transparent.

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

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

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 Can Love October In September. September Doesn’t Care.

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.

We Can Approach Belief From An Intellectual Path, But In The End, God Must Be Taken On Faith. Proofs Are For Things Of This World, Things In Time And Of Time, Not Beyond Time.

But Victimhood Was Seductive, A Release From Responsibility And Caring. Fear Would Be Transmuted Into Weary Resignation; Failure Would No Longer Generate Guilt But, Instead, Would Spawn A Comforting Self-pity.

Because God Is Never Cruel, There Is A Reason For All Things. We Must Know The Pain Of Loss; Because If We Never Knew It, We Would Have No Compassion For Others, And We Would Become Monsters Of Self-regard, Creatures Of Unalloyed Self-interest. The Terrible Pain Of Loss Teaches Humility To Our Prideful Kind, Has The Power To Soften Uncaring Hearts, To Make A Better Person Of A Good One.

In A Crunch A Man's Reputation Never Counts For As Much As It Ought To.

In A Book, Even The Real Bastards Can't Hurt You. And You Can Never Loose A Friend You Make In A Book. When You Get To A Sad Part, No One's There To See You Cry. Or Wonder Why You Don't Cry When You Should.

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.

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

I Think It's Perfectly Just To Refuse Service To Anyone Based On Behavior, But Not Based On Race Or Religion.

If You Want To Publish Two Books A Year Under Your Own Name And Your Publisher Doesn't, Maybe You Need A Different Publisher.

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.

Shakespeare Again. Once You Let Him Into Your Head, He Takes Up Tenancy And Will Not Leave.

In The Wind, The Trees, Like Agitated Lions Preparing To Roar, Shook Their Great Green Manes.

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

The Brain Acknowledged The Approach Of Death While The Heart Stubbornly Insisted Upon Immortality.

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.

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

Living In The Modern Age, Death For Virtue Is The Wage. So It Seems In Darker Hours. Evil Wins, Kindness Cowers. Ruled By Violence And Vice We All Stand Upon Thin Ice. Are We Brave Or Are We Mice, Here Upon Such Thin, Thin Ice? Dare We Linger, Dare We Skate? Dare We Laugh Or Celebrate, Knowing We May Strain The Ice? Preserve The Ice At Any Price?

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

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.

The Process, Not The Final Achievement, Is What It's All About.

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 Snow Did Not Even Whisper Its Way To Earth, But Seemed To Salt The Night With Silence.

We Are All The Walking Wounded In A World That Is A War Zone. Everything We Love Will Be Taken From Us, Everything, Last Of All Life Itself. Yet Everywhere I Look, I Find Great Beauty In This Battlefield, And Grace And The Promise Of Joy.

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.

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

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.

Grapes Are Juicy. Strawberries. Oranges. Good Pork Chops Are Succulent," Said Dusty. "but The Word Isn't Accurately Descriptive Of A Person." Smiling With Delight, Ahriman Said, "oh, Really, Not Accurately Descriptive? Be Careful Housepainter. Your Genes Are Showing. What If I Were A Cannibal?

Your Sense Of Responsibility To Others Can Never Be Excessive.

Responsibility To Others

Sense Of Responsibility

Eventually, As My Books Became Best-sellers, The Nickels Pile Up And One Day I Was Offered A Substantial Four-book Deal That Was Lucrative As Any Airliner Hijacking In History. Though Writing Those Four Books Was Hard Work, At Least I Didn't Have To Wear Kevlar Body Armor, Carry Heavy Bandoliers Of Spare Ammunition, Or Work With Associates Named Mad Dog.

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.

Loving The Ideal More Than The Reality Is The Cause Of All The Misery The Human Species Creates For Itself.

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

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