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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.
-Dean Koontz
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Human Beings Are Such

Dean Koontz
...
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.

Understanding the Quote: "human beings are such knotted, desperate pieces of work-it's a rare thing..."

This quote by Dean Koontz reflects deeply on the theme of pieces. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Pieces, Desperate, Working It, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Dean Koontz interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Dean Koontz

Dean Koontz is celebrated for insightful thoughts on pieces and desperate. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Pieces
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Light
Soul
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
Pain Is A Gift. Humanity, Without Pain, Would Know Neither Fear Nor Pity.
Pain
Humanity
Pity
Life Had Not Taught Me To Distrust Ministers, But It Had Taught Me To Trust No One More Than Dogs.
Dog
Trust No One
Taught
Once You Have Had A Wonderful Dog, A Life Without One, Is A Life Diminished.
Life
Dog
Animal
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.
Wife
Scare
Looks
Nothing Gives Us Courage More Readily Than The Desire To Avoid Looking Like A Damn Fool.
Courage
Giving
Desire
A Good Dog Is One Of The Best Things Of All To Be.
Dog
Good Dog
Best Things
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
I Work On One Page, Revising And Polishing Until I Can't Make It Better, Then Move On To The Next. Some Pages Might Get 20 Or More Drafts Before I Move On.
Moving
Might
Pages
Evil Was Coming. I Wondered Whose Face It Would Be Wearing.
Evil
Would Be
Faces
...he Was Part Of A Family Whether He Wanted To Be Or Not, The Family Of Humanity, More Often Than Not A Frustrating And Contentious Clan, Flawed And Often Deeply Confused, But Also Periodically Noble And Admirable, With A Common Destiny That Every Member Shared.
Confused
Destiny
Humanity
A Silent Dark...as Black As A Moonless Lake, As A Ravine's Wings, Darkness There And Nothing More, Merely This And Nothing More.
Dark
Lakes
Wings
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.
Dark
Men
Mystery
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.
Heart
Fate
Hands
We Wasn't Born To Be All The Time Scared, We Was Born Happy.
Scared
Born
Being Paid Well For Something You Love To Do - It's A Grace.
Grace
Wells
Something You Love
Is There Some Meaning To This Life? What Purpose Lies Behind The Strife? Whence Do We Come, Where Are We Bound? These Cold Questions Echo And Resound Through Each Day, Each Lonely Night. We Long To Find The Splendid Light That Will Cast A Revelatory Beam Upon The Meaning Of The Human Dream. Courage, Love, Friendship, Compassion, And Empathy Lift Us Above The Simple Beasts And Define Humanity.
Love
Dream
Lonely
Cowards Shrink From Toil And Peril, Vulgar Souls Attempt And Fail; Men Of Mettle, Nothing Daunted, Persevere Till They Prevail.
Perseverance
Men
Soul
We Never Had Books In The House. Not Any Book In Our House. Not A Bible, Not Anything. So, I Would Go The Library From A Very Young Age And Get The Books Out.
Book
House
Age
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
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
Too Many Dogs Continue To Be Abused And Abandond - One Is Too Many - And People Continue To Kill People For Money And Envy And No Reason At All. Bad People Succeed And Good People Fail, But That's Not The End Of The Story. Miracles Happen That Nobody Sees, And Among Us Walk Heroes Who Are Never Recognised, And People Live In Loneliness Because They Cannot Believe They Are Loved
Dog
Loneliness
Hero
The Selfless Love That We Give To Others, To The Point Of Being Willing To Sacrifice Our Lives For Them, Is All The Proof I Need That Human Beings Are Not Mere Animals Of Self-interest. We Carry Within Us A Divine Spark, And If We Chose To Recognize It, Our Lives Have Dignity, Meaning, Hope.
Sacrifice
Animal
Self
I Can Love October In September. September Doesn’t Care.
Care
October
September
Maybe I'm Needy, Neurotic, Paranoid. Under The Circumstances, Of Course, If I Weren't Needy, Neurotic, And Paranoid, I'd Obviously Be Psychotic.
Depression
Mental Illness
Psychotic
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
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
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
The Sane Understand That Human Beings Are Incapable Of Sustaining Conspiracies On A Grand Scale, Because Some Of Our Most Defining Qualities As A Species Are Inattention To Detail, A Tendency To Panic, And An Inability To Keep Our Mouths Shut.
Quality
Inability
Details
Although I've Said A Million Times That I'm Not A Horror Writer, I Do Like Horror.
Horror
Said
Millions
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
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
Cat
Men
Doors
If Someone Wrote It And It Had A Peculiar Twist, I've Read It.
Twists
Peculiar
Ifs
I Come Down On The Side Of Free Will But I Have Sympathy For Those Who Believe In Fate Because There Is Something About Life Which We Feel We Have No Control Over.
Believe
Fate
Sides
One Of The Greatest Gifts We Receive From Dogs Is The Tenderness They Evoke In Us. The Disappointments Of Life, The Injustices, The Battering Events That Are Beyond Our Control, And The Betrayals We Endure, From Those We Befriended And Loved, Can Make Us Cynical And Turn Our Hearts Into Flint – On Which Only The Matches Of Anger And Bitterness Can Be Struck Into Flame. By Their Delight In Being With Us, The Reliable Sunniness Of Their Disposition, The Joy They Bring To Playtime, The Curiosity With Which They Embrace Each New Experience, Dogs Can Melt Cynicism,and Sweeten The Bitter Heart.
Dog
Disappointment
Betrayal
Lies Hurt People; Imagination Makes Life More Fun.
Hurt
Fun
Lying
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.
Book
Writing
Fire
Where There's Cake, There's Hope. And There's Always Cake.
Cake
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
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
If You Have To Pay The Bills, And You Write Something You're Not Proud Of, Use A Pen-name For That.
Writing
Names
Use
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
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.
Differences
Together
Way
Alliteration Seems To Offend People.
People
Alliteration
Seems
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
Believe
Thinking
People
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.
Two
Choices
Presidential
There's No Use Wasting Are Energy Being Afraid Of The Devils, Demons And Things That Go Bump In The Night... Because Ultimately We'll Never Encounter Anything More Terrifying Than The Monster Among Us. Hell Is Where We Make It.
Fear
Night
Devil
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
The Only Thing I Know For Sure Is How Much I Do Not Know.
Knows
Books Had Shown Me, However, That All People Everywhere Wanted Their Lives To Have Purpose And Meaning. This Longing Was Universal.
Book
People
Purpose
Whiskers Of The Cat, Webbed Toes On My Swimming Dog; God Is In The Details.
Dog
Cat
Swimming
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
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
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
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.
People
Devil
Needs
Few Human Beings Give Of Themselves To Another As A Dog Gives Of Itself.
Dog
Loss
Giving
Of All The Things We Can Feel With Our Minds And Bodies, Severe Pain Is The Purest, For It Drives Everything Else From Our Awareness And Focuses Us As Perfectly As We Can Ever Be Focused.
Pain
Mind
Body
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.
Fate
Different
Path
Atlas Isn't Carrying The World On His Shoulders, No Giant Muscular Hulk With A Sense Of Responsibility; The World Is Balanced On A Pyramid Of Clowns, And They Are Always Tooting Horns And Wobbling And Goosing Each Other.
Responsibility
Pyramids
Giants
I Am Sustained By The Certainty That Life Has Meaning...as Does Death.
Doe
Certainty
I Think It's Perfectly Just To Refuse Service To Anyone Based On Behavior, But Not Based On Race Or Religion.
Thinking
Race
Judging
Night Has Patterns That Can Be Read Less By The Living Than By The Dead.
Night
Patterns
Reality Isn't What It Used To Be.
Reality
Used
Used To Be
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
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
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
In My Personal Life, I'm A Comic Novel. But Then, So Are We All, Because We're Human Beings.
Literature
Comic
Novel
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
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