Although The Human Heart Is Selfish And Arrogant, So Many Struggle Against Their Selfishness And Learn Humility; Because Of Them, As Long As There Is Life, There Is Hope That Beauty Lost Can Be Rediscovered, That What Has Been Reviled Can Be Redeemed.

-Dean Koontz

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Although The Human Heart

Dean Koontz

Topic

Selfish

Struggle

Heart

More From Dean Koontz

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.

Dad

Father

Alcohol

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.

Wisdom

Believe

Heart

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

Humanity

Fool

Parades

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.

Stars

Children

Twilight

Home Was Not A Perfect Place. But It Was The Only Home They Had And They Could Hope To Make It Better.

Home

Perfect

His Blue Eyes Were Seas Where Sorrow Sailed.

Eye

Blue

Sea

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

Book

Choices

Made

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

Friendship

Expression

Teeth

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

Passion

Writing

Style

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.

Writing

Games

Smell

Some Days I'm Lucky To Squeeze Out A Page Of Copy That Pleases Me, But I Get As Many As Six Or Seven Pages On A Very Good Day; The Average Is Probably Three Pages.

Good Day

Average

Please Me

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.

Life

Spring

Butterfly

Reality Isn't What It Used To Be.

Reality

Used

Used To Be

Humanity Was Drawn To Turmoil And Self-destruction As Inevitably As The Earth Was Drawn To Complete Its Annual Revolution Of The Sun.

Self

Humanity

Earth

Billy Pilgrim Had A Theory About Diaries. Women Were More Likely Than Men To Think That Their Lives Had Sufficient Meaning To Require Recording On A Daily Basis. It Was Not For The Most Part A God-is-leading-me-on-a-wondrous-journey Kind Of Meaning, But More An I've-gotta-be-me-but-nobody-cares Sentimentalism That Passed For Meaning, And They Usually Stopped Keeping A Diary By The Time They Hit Thirty, Because By Then They Didn't Want To Ponder The Meaning Of Life Anymore Because It Scared The Crap Out Of Them.

Journey

Men

Thinking

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.

Memories

Goes On

Way

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.

Lying

Commitment

Age

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

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.

True Evil

Ideas

Literature

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.

Book

Kids

House

That Was One Of The Most Fundamental And Sacred Duties Good Friends And Families Performed For One Another! They Tended The Flame Of Memory, So No One’s Death Meant An Immediate Vanishment From The World; In Some Sense The Deceased Would Live On After Their Passing, At Least As Long As Those Who Loved Them Lived. Such Memories Were An Essential Weapon Against The Chaos Of Life And Death, A Way To Ensure Some Continuity From Generation To Generation, An Order Of Endorsement And Meaning.

Memories

Good Friend

Flames

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.

Love

Kindness

Generosity

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.

Death

Mean

Odd Thomas

While I Like People, I Do Also Like Being Alone In A Room And Seeing What You Can Do With A Particular Theme Or Subject.

Like Being Alone

People

Rooms

It Is Human Nature To Want To Believe In The Wizardry Of The Magician--but Also To Turn Against Him And To Scorn Him The Moment That He Commits The Slightest Error That Reveals His Trickery. Those In The Audience Are Embarrassed To Have Been So Easily Astonished, And They Blame The Performer For Their Gullibility.

Believe

Errors

Wizardry

She Says What Holds Their Marriage Together Is That She Feels Too Damn Sorry For Him To Ask For A Divorce.

Sorry

Divorce

Together

The Broom Wasn't As Comforting As A Flamethrower Would Have Been, But It Was Better Than A Mop And Certainly More Threatening Than A Feather Duster.

Comforting

Threatening

Brooms

Then What Are You? An Electronic Hannibal Lector? You Can't Eat My Liver With Fava Beans Through A Modem, You Know.

Fear

Lectors

Beans

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

Two

Evil

Literature

Your Sense Of Responsibility To Others Can Never Be Excessive.

Responsibility

Responsibility To Others

Sense Of Responsibility

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

Night

Patterns

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.

Youth Of Today

Effort

Generations

The Human Imagination May Be The Most Elastic Thing In The Universe, Stretching To Encompass The Millions Of Dreams That In Centuries Of Relectless Struggle Built Modern Civilization, To Entertain The Endless Doubts That Hamper Every Human Enterprise, And To Conceive The Vast Menagerie Of Boogeymen That Trouble Every Human Heart.

Dream

Struggle

Heart

Lies Hurt People; Imagination Makes Life More Fun.

Hurt

Fun

Lying

You Can't Always Win Arguments As A Writer, But You Have To Just Go Ahead And Say, Well, I'm Doing It That Way Anyway.

Winning

Way

Argument

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

Book

People

Purpose

She Blinked, Sat Up, And Saw Chris In The Bathroom Doorway. He'd Just Gotten Out The Shower. His Hair Was Damp, And He Was Dressed Only In His Briefs. The Sight Of His Thin, Boyish Body - All Ribs And Elbows And Knees - Pulled At Her Heart, For He Looked So Innocent And Vulnerable. He Was So Small And Fragile That She Wondered How She Could Ever Protect Him, And Renewed Fear Rose In Her.

Fear

Heart

Hair

The Dead Are Merely The Countrymen Of My Future.

Fear

My Future

Countrymen

While Life Could Be Evaded, Death Could Not.

Death

I Imagined A Life That Turned Out To Be Pretty Much Exactly Like The One I've Had. That Fascinates Me Endlessly. I Wake Up Many Mornings, And It Almost Wouldn't Surprise Me If I Woke Up From It And It Was All A Dream.

Dream

Morning

Wake Up

I Love My Editor, But That Would Be The Definition Of Hell To Me To Live With Someone And Have Them Go Page By Page Through My Manuscript. That I Want To Avoid At All Costs.

Editors

Pages

Would Be

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.

Character

Player

Men

I Like To Deal With Every Aspect Of Our Condition, And That Means Terror And Humor In Equal Mix. Some Books Have More Room For Humor Than Others.

Book

Humor

Mean

A Politician's Goal Is Always To Manipulate Public Debate. I Think There Are Some Politicians With Higher Goals. But All Of Them Get Corrupted By Power.

Thinking

Goal

Literature

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.

Struggle

Writing

People

The Answer To The Mystery Of Existence Is The Love You Shared Sometimes So Imperfectly, And When The Loss Wakes You To The Deeper Beauty Of It, To The Sanctity Of It, You Can't Get Off Your Knees For A Long Time, You're Driven To Your Knees Not By The Weight Of The Loss But By Gratitude For What Preceded The Loss.

Gratitude

Grief

Love You

Britney: You In A Fight? Odd: No, It's An Employment-related Fork Wound.

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

Waiting

Born

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.

Heart

Soul

Make You Smile

I Know It's Hard Being A Single Mother Baby, He Said, But We're Talking Fundamentals Here. Homemade Cookies Are One Of The Best Parts Of Christmas. It's An Absolute Fundamental.

Mother

Baby

Talking

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.

Thinking

Eden

Buffets

Envy, 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.

Daughter

Men

People

A Plot Without Action Is Like Pasta Without Garlic, Like Dolly Parton Without Cleavage, And Like A Writer Without His Similes.

Writing

Pasta

Garlic

No Degree Of Prosperity Can Be Sufficient To Eliminate All Misfortune, And Sloth Is Impervious To Opportunity.

Opportunity

Sloth

Degrees

I Was Looking Forward To Having A Halo. It Would Make Such A Convenient Reading Lamp.

Reading

Halos

Lamps

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.

People

Looks

Week

Death Lies Dormant In Each Of Us And Will Bloom In Time.

Lying

Dormant

People Who Go To Work Every Day, Make Sacrifices To Raise Families, And Get Through Life Without Hurting Other People If They Can Help It-those Are The Real Heros.

Hurt

Real

Hero

I Can Remember The Times When I Started Including Humor In Novels That Were Suspenseful. I Was Told You Can't Do That Because You Can't Keep The Audience In Suspense If They're Laughing. My Attitude Was, If The Character Has A Sense Of Humor, Then That Makes The Character More Real Because That's How We Deal With The Vicissitudes Of Life, We Deal With It Through Humor.

Attitude

Real

Character

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.

People

Evil

Laughing

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.

Life

Waiting

World

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

Loneliness

Reflection

Doors

I Always Enjoyed The Kids, But I Didn't Enjoy The Bureaucracy Of The Educational System.

Educational

Kids

Enjoy

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.

Mother

Earthquakes

Bipolar

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.

War

Taken

Joy

Pain Can Be Endured And Defeated Only If It Is Embraced. Denied Or Feared, It Grows In Perception If Not In Reality. The Best Response To Terror Is Righteous Anger, Confidence In Ultimate Justice, A Refusal To Be Intimidated.

Pain

Reality

Justice

...in An Infinite Universe, Anything That Could Be Imagined Might Somewhere Exist.

Might

Infinite

Infinite Universe

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.

Interesting

Wake Up

Fiction

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.

Love

Pain

Writing

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.

Believe

Mean

Want

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.

Love Is

Thinking

Fur

The Truth Was Stranger Than The Official Fiction.

Fiction

Stranger

Officials

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.

Life

Taken

One Day

You Won't Find The Truth Of Life In Morbidity, Only In Hope.

Morbidity

Truth Of Life

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.

True Friend

Fun

Sacrifice

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?

Kindness

Winning

Knowing

Fate Cannot Be Sidestepped Or Outrun.

Fate

Outrun

Too Much Mystery Is Merely An Annoyance. Too Much Adventure Is Exhausting. And A Little Terror Goes A Long Way.

Adventure

Long

Littles

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

Liars

Lying

Deception

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.

Dream

Heart

Dark

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.

Glimpse

Ordinary

Littles

Not Funny Ha Ha, Funny Weird.

More To The Point, I Know Why Soldiers, Home From War, Seldom Tell Their Families About Their Exploits In More Than General Terms. We Who Survive Must Go On In The Names Of Those Who Fall, But If We Dwell Too Much On The Vivid Details Of What We've Witnessed Of Man's Inhumanity To Man, We Simply Can't Go On. Perseverance Is Impossible If We Don't Permit Ourselves To Hope.

Perseverance

War

Fall

The World Needed A Little Evil, So Good Had Something To Compare Itself To, But You Couldn't Let It Think It Had The Right-of-way On The Road And An Invitation To Dinner.

Thinking

Evil

Balance

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.

Would Be

Redemption

Scarring

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.

Space

Water

Love And Friendship

All I Ask Of Fate Is That The People She Hurls Into My Life, Whether They Are Evil Or Good, Or Morally Bipolar, Should Be Amusing To One Degree Or Another.... The Problem Is Finding Smile-inducing Evil People, Because The Evil Are The Most Humorless, Though In The Movies They Frequently Get Some Of The Best Lines.

Fate

Evil People

Bipolar

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.

Dream

Life Changing

Reality

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

Mind

Louisiana

Swamps

I Really Believe That Everyone Has A Talent, Ability, Or Skill That He Can Mine To Support Himself And To Succeed In Life.

Inspirational

Believe

Skills

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.

Purpose

Mysterious

Conflict

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.

Grateful

People

Giving

What Year These Events Transpired Is Of No Consequence. Where They Occured Is Not Important. The Time Is Always, And The Place Is Everywhere.

Years

Important

Events

I Don't Find Slashing And Blood Flying Everywhere To Be Scary. I Just Find It Repulsive.

Halloween

Blood

Scary

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

Fate

Hands

Suffering

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.

Journey

People

Car

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

People

Goes On

Bears

We Wasn't Born To Be All The Time Scared, We Was Born Happy.

Scared

Born

Some Lives, Conducted With Grace, Are Beautiful Arcs Bridging This World To Eternity.

Beautiful

Grace

World

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.

Grief

Sorrow

Might

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

Lying

Grateful

Boys

I Kind Of Build A Novel The Way Marine Polyps Build A Coral Reef, It's Millions And Millions Of Little Precarious Bodies Stacked On One Another. And In My Case, That's Thousands Of Minutes I Go Through To Get From One Scene To The Next And Build It That Way.

Marine

Coral Reefs

Way

...what Makes Humanity Beautiful Is Our Free Will, Our Individuality, Our Endless Striving In Spite Of Our Imperfection. By The Light Of The Moon Chapter 27 Page 214

Beauty

Beautiful

Moon

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.

Heart

Bridges

Space

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.

Dark

Light

Purpose

The Hatred Of Truth Is The Taproot Of Violence.

Hatred

Violence

Truth Is

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

Use

Talent

Obligation

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

Heart

Needs

Anguish

...i Felt Fear Enter The Halls Of My Mind, But I Didn't Give It The Keys To Every Room.

Keys

Giving

Mind

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.

Hate

Pride

Snakes

Love Was A Sacred Garment, Woven Of A Fabric So Thin That It Could Not Be Seen, Yet So Strong That Even Mighty Death Could Not Tear It, A Garment That Could Not Be Frayed By Use, That Brought Warmth Into What Would Otherwise Be An Intolerable, Cold World- But At Times Love Could Also Be As Heavy As Chain Mail. Bearing The Burden Of Love, On Those Occasions When It Was A Solemn Weight, Made It More Precious When, In Better Times, It Caught The Wind In Sleeves Like Wings, And Lifted You.

Strong

Wind

Wings

We Are Not Strangers To Ourselves, We Only Try To Be.

Trying

Stranger

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

Writing

Pages

Revising

Are You Prepared For The First Wound?

Firsts

Prepared

Wounds

Sometimes It Seemed That The Human Heart, This Side Of Eden, Feared Life More Than Death, Light More Than Darkness, Freedom More Than Surrender.

Heart

Light

Eden

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.

Responsibility

Caring

Self

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.

Stars

Silly

Who I Am

Dogs Are One Of Those Things That Make You Happy And Make You Wonder.

Dog

Wonder

Make You Happy

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

Lying

Heart

May

Always, The Eye Sees More Than The Mind Can Comprehend, And We Go Through Life Self-blinded To Much That Lies Before Us. We Want A Simple World, But We Live In A Magnificently Complex One, And Rather Than Open Ourselves To It, We Perceive The World Through Filters That Make It Less Daunting.

Lying

Eye

Simple

Death Came, Death Went, But Commerce Flowed Eternal.

Commerce

Eternal

I Just Became Fascinated With How Complex And Unlikely The Universe Is And Life Is And Catholicism Gives Me An Answer To That.

Giving

Answers

Life Is

I've A Long List Of Things I Don't Know How I've Done, But I've Done Them. In The End, It's Always About Perseverance.

Perseverance

Long

Done

You Know What's Wrong With Humanity?... The Greatest Gift We Were Given Is Our Free Will, And We Keep Misusing It.

Humanity

Free Will

Given

Once You Have Had A Wonderful Dog, A Life Without One, Is A Life Diminished.

Life

Dog

Animal

All These Girls Swooning Over Hunky Vampires, What They Really Want Is To Give Away Their Freedom, To Be Controlled And Told What To Do And Not Have To Think -- And Never Die, Of Course. It's Sick Is What It Is. I Don't Want To Be A Forever-young Living Corpse.

Girl

Thinking

Giving

What We Do As A Society Is Seek Simple Answers.

Simple

Answers

Literature

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

Anger

Emotion

Violent

I'm Either A Mutant Or A Cripple, And I Refuse To Be A Cripple. People Pity Cripples, But They're Afraid Of Mutants [...] Fear Implies Respect.

People

Mutants

Pity

What Sucks The Worst Is . . . This World Was A Gift To Us, And We Broke It, And Part Of The Deal Is That If We Want Things Right, We Have To Fix It Ourselves. But We Can't. We Try, But We Can't.

Trying

World

Want

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

Book

Way To Live

Way

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.

Laughter

Despair

Antidote

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

Ice

Knowing

Laughing

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

Doors

Waiting

Soul

Hunches [are] Just Messages From The Subconscious, Which [is] Thinking Furiously All The Time And Processing Information We Have Not Consciously Noted.

Thinking

Information

Messages

There Are Thousands Of Proteins In The Cells, Some Of Them Very Large Chains Of Molecules. And The Cell Doesn't Function If One Of Those Chains Of Molecules Isn't There, And You Start Looking At The Complexity Of Life And The Mystery Of Life, And Then Start Thinking About Things Like The Twenty Universal Constants, That If Any One Of Them From Plank's Minimum To The Mass Of A Proton, If One Of Them Is The Tiniest Bit Off, There Would Be No Life Or Possibility Of It In The Universe.

Thinking

Cells

Twenties

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.

Depressing

Clever

Smart

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

Cake

Funny Food

Sweet Tooth

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

Thinking

Race

Judging

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.

Dog

Book

Hard Work

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.

Book

Skeletons

Littles

Perhaps Extreme Danger Strips Us Of All Pretenses, All Ambitions, All Confusions, Focusing Us More Intensely Than We Are Otherwise Ever Focused, So That We Remember What We Otherwise Spend Most Of Our Lives Forgetting: That Our Nature And Purpose Is, More Than Anything Else, To Love And To Make Love, To Take Joy From The Beauty Of The World, To Live With An Awareness That The Future Is Not As Real A Place For Any Of Us As Are The Present And The Past.

Love

Real

Ambition

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.

Book

Years

Literature

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

Love

Life

Sex

There Are No Explanations For Human Evil. Only Excuses.

Evil

Excuse

Explanation

The More You Expect From Life, The More Your Expectations Will Be Fulfilled. By Laughing, You Do Not Use Up Your Laughter, But Increase Your Store Of It. The More You Love, The More You Will Be Loved. The More You Give, The More You Will Receive. Life Proves That Truth Every Hour, Every Day. And Life Continues To Surprise.

Laughter

Giving

Laughing

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

Self

Defense

Sin

Recognizing The Structure Of Your Psychology Doesn't Mean That You Can Easily Rebuild It.

Mean

Psychology

Structure

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

Despair

Cheerful

Leviathan

Life Without Meaning Cannot Be Borne. We Find A Mission To Which We're Sworn -or Answer The Call Of Death's Dark Horn. Without A Gleaning Of Purpose In Life, We Have No Vision, We Live In Strife, -or Let Blood Fall On A Suicide Knife.

Suicide

Fall

Suicidal

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?

Orange

What If

Pork

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

Life

Clever

Two

When A Knot Gets To Tight, You Can Always Cut The Rope

Cutting

Rope

Knots

The Opportunity To Love A Dog And To Treat It With Kindness Is An Opportunity For A Lost And Selfish Heart To Be Redeemed. They Are Powerless And Innocent, And It Is How We Treat The Humblest Among Us That Surely Determines The Fate Of Our Souls

Dog

Kindness

Selfish

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.

Prayer

Believe

Night

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

Parks

Pigeons

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

Flower

Hands

Expectations

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.

Baby

World

Wonder

He Once Told Me That An August Evening Was "as Hot As Three Toads In A Cuisinart," A Comparison That Left Me Blinking Two Days Later.

August

Two

Hot

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.

Lying

Light

Soul

Readers Will Stay With An Author, No Matter What The Variations In Style And Genre, As Long As They Get That Sense Of Story, Of Character, Of Empathetic Involvement.

Character

Long

Empathy

The Biggest Advice Is Being True To What You Want To Do. Don't Worry If Other People Understand It Or Don't Understand It. If What You're Doing Has Merit, It Will Find Its Way.

People

Worry

Advice

We Are Not, However, A Species That Can Choose The Baggage With Which We Must Travel. In Spite Of Our Best Intentions, We Always Find That We Have Brought Along A Suitcase Or Two Of Darkness And Despair.

Two

Darkness

Despair

I Fell In Love With Her For Her Sense Of Humour. If She Ever Lost Her Sense Of Humour, I Would Have To Dump Her. Then I'd Kill Myself Because I Couldn't Live Without Her.

Lost

Dump

Humour

Every Book Has Some Real Life In It. I Was Never Pursued By An Evil Twin Clone, But Everything Else In Mr. Murder Was Pretty Much Out Of My Own Life.

Real

Book

Evil

This May Be The Primary Purpose Of Dogs: To Restore Our Sense Of Wonder And To Help Us Maintain It, To Make Us Consider That We Should Trust Our Intuition As They Trust Theirs And To Help Us Realize That A Thing Known Intuitively Can Be As Real As Anything Known By Material Experience.

Dog

Real

Intuition

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.

Mother

Dream

Father

It Is Music That Speaks To The Deepest Reaches Of Your Soul, And You Are Lifted Higher, Ever Higher, By The Adagio, In My Opinion More So Even Than In Any Of The Masses That Beethoven Composed.

Soul

Opinion

Speak

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.

Past

Second Chance

Yesterday

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.

Thinking

Watches

Literature

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.

Faith

Taken

Intellectual

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

Care

October

September

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".

Judging

Touching

Wish

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?

Mother

Children

Thinking

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

Ignorance

Sleep

Night

Evil Is No Faceless Stranger, Living In A Distant Neighborhood. Evil Has A Wholesome, Hometown Face, With Merry Eyes And An Open Smile. Evil Walks Among Us, Wearing A Mask Which Looks Like All Our Faces.

Eye

Evil

Looks

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.

Vocabulary

Going Away

Trying

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

Reflection

Devil

Brutality

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.

Spirit

Mercy

Creation

These Days, People Spent Too Much Time Striving To Understand Their Feelings - And Then Ended Up With None That Were Genuine.

People

Feelings

Too Much

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.

Relationship

Dog

Betrayal

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

Night

Snow

Silence

Sometimes There Is No Darker Place Than Our Thoughts, The Moonless Midnight Of The Mind.

Mind

Midnight

Sometimes

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.

Dream

Real

Ambition

And The Funny Thing Was If You Made The Best Of It, If You Smiled Through Every Storm, The Bad Things Were Never As Terrible As You Expected Them To Be, And The Good Things Were Better Than Anything You Could Have Wished For Yourself.

Funny Things

Storm

Good Things

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

Tears

Looks

Might

Have Fun, Entertain Yourself With Your Work, Make Yourself Laugh And Cry With Your Own Stories, Make Yourself Shiver In Suspense Along With Your Characters. If You Can Do That, Then You Will Most Likely Find A Large Audience; But Even If A Large Audience Is Never Found, You'll Have A Happy Life.

Fun

Character

Happy Life

Whiskers Of The Cat, Webbed Toes On My Swimming Dog; God Is In The Details.

Dog

Cat

Swimming

He Was Sure That He Was Not The Cause Of The Abrupt Silence. His Passage Through The Canyon Had Not Previously Disturbed Either Birds Or Cicadas. Something Was Out There. An Intruder Of Which The Ordinary Forest Creatures Clearly Did Not Approve. He Took A Deep Breath And Held It Again, Straining To Hear The Slightest Movement In The Woods. This Time He Detected The Rustle Of Brush, A Snapping Twig, The Soft Crunch Of Dry Leaves-and The Unnervingly Peculiar, Heavy, Ragged Breathing Of Something Big.

Breathing

Silence

Bird

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.

Choices

Way

Path

I Think The World Is Full Of Evil People. I Think In Some Ways We're In More Danger Now Than Before.

Thinking

Evil People

Literature

Love And Sausage Are Alike. Can Never Have Enough Of Either.

Funny

Food

Sausage

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.

Suicide

Want

Littles

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

Writing

Week

Hours

There's Evil In The World, All Right. Being Aware Of It Makes You A Realist, Not A Paranoid.

Evil

World

Realist

I've Got Evil In Me As Much As Anyone, Some Desires That Scare Me. Even If I Don't Give In To Them, Just Having Them Scares The Living Bejesus Out Of Me Sometimes. I'm No Saint, The Way You Kid About. But I've Always Walked The Line, Walked That Goddamned Line. It's A Mean Mother Of A Line, Straight And Narrow, Sharp As A Razor, Cuts Right Into You When You Walk It Long Enough. You're Always Bleeding On That Line, And Sometimes You Wonder Why You Don't Just Step Off And Walk In The Cool Grass.

Mother

Mean

Kids

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

Fall

Writing

Yelling

I Am Sustained By The Certainty That Life Has Meaning...as Does Death.

Doe

Certainty

Understanding Quotes: Their Essence and Application

Quotes, or quotations, are powerful tools in communication, encapsulating ideas, emotions, and wisdom in concise expressions. They serve various purposes across different contexts, from academic writing to everyday conversation.

1. Defining Quotes

A quote is a repetition of someone else's statement or thoughts. It can be a direct replication of words spoken or written by another individual, often used to support arguments, provide evidence, or convey profound insights.

2. The Importance of Quotes

2.1. Enhancing Credibility

Incorporating quotes from authoritative sources can bolster the credibility of your work. By referencing experts or primary sources, you demonstrate thorough research and a solid foundation for your arguments.

2.2. Providing Evidence

Quotes serve as concrete evidence to support claims. In academic and professional writing, they validate points made, offering readers a basis to trust the information presented.

2.3. Conveying Emotions and Perspectives

Quotes can encapsulate emotions and perspectives succinctly. They allow writers to express complex feelings or viewpoints through the words of others, often more eloquently than paraphrasing.

3. Types of Quotes

3.1. Direct Quotes

Direct quotes involve copying the exact words from a source, enclosed in quotation marks. They are used when the original wording is significant or particularly well-expressed.

3.2. Indirect Quotes (Paraphrasing)

Indirect quotes restate the original message in your own words. While not enclosed in quotation marks, they still require proper attribution to the original source.

3.3. Block Quotes

Block quotes are lengthy direct quotations, formatted as a separate block of text. They are typically used for quotes exceeding a certain length, varying by citation style. For instance, in APA style, quotes longer than 40 words are formatted as block quotes.

4. Proper Usage of Quotes

4.1. Contextual Relevance

Ensure that the quote you choose is relevant to the topic and adds value to your content. Avoid inserting quotes solely for decorative purposes.

4.2. Integration into Your Writing

Seamlessly integrate quotes into your writing. Introduce them appropriately and follow up with analysis or commentary to connect them to your main points.

4.3. Attribution and Citation

Always attribute quotes to their original authors and provide proper citations according to the required style guide (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.).

5. Common Mistakes to Avoid

5.1. Overusing Quotes

Relying too heavily on quotes can overshadow your voice. Use them sparingly to support your arguments, not replace them.

5.2. Lack of Analysis

Presenting a quote without analysis or explanation can leave readers questioning its relevance. Always follow up with your interpretation or discussion.

5.3. Misquoting or Taking Out of Context

Ensure that quotes are accurate and not taken out of context, as this can mislead readers and undermine your credibility.

6. Quotes in Different Contexts

6.1. Academic Writing

In academic writing, quotes are used to support arguments, provide evidence, and engage with existing literature. Proper citation is crucial to avoid plagiarism.

6.2. Journalism

Journalists use quotes to provide firsthand accounts, add authenticity, and present multiple perspectives within a story.

6.3. Literature and Creative Writing

In literature, quotes can be used to convey character voices, themes, and stylistic elements. They enrich narratives and provide depth to storytelling.

7. Punctuation and Formatting

Understanding the correct punctuation and formatting of quotes is essential:

Quotation Marks: Always enclose direct quotes within quotation marks.

Punctuation Placement: In American English, periods and commas are placed inside quotation marks, while colons and semicolons are placed outside.

Block Quotes: For longer quotes, format them as block quotes without quotation marks, and indent the entire block.

8. Ethical Considerations

Ethical use of quotes involves accurate representation, proper attribution, and respect for intellectual property. Misuse can lead to plagiarism, which carries serious academic and professional consequences.

9. Tools for Managing Quotes

Utilize tools like citation generators and plagiarism checkers to manage quotes effectively. These tools help ensure proper formatting and originality in your writing.

Conclusion

Quotes are invaluable in enriching content, providing evidence, and conveying complex ideas succinctly. When used appropriately, they enhance the quality and credibility of your writing. Always ensure relevance, proper integration, and ethical usage to maximize their impact.

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