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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.

-Dean Koontz

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It Is Music That

Dean Koontz

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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.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

Hope Is The Destination That We Seek. Love Is The Road That Leads To Hope. Courage Is The Motor That Drives Us. We Travel Out Of Darkness Into Faith.

Each Book Is A Mind Alive, A Life Revealed, A World Awaiting Exploration, But Living People Are All Those Things, As Well—and More, Because Their Stories Haven’t Yet Been Completely Told.

Darkness Dwells Within Even The Best Of Us. In The Worst Of Us, Darkness Not Only Dwells But Reigns.

Dogs Invite Us Not Only To Share Their Joy But Also To Live In The Moment, Where We Are Neither Proceeding From Nor Moving Toward, Where The Enchantment Of The Past And Future Cannot Distract Us, Where A Freedom From Practical Desire And A Cessation Of Our Usual Ceaseless Action Allows Us To Recognize The Truth Of Our Existence, The Reality Of Our World And Purpose--if We Dare.

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".

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Narcissists Are Everywhere In This Ripe Age Of Self-love, Which Amazes Me Because So Much In Life Would Seem To Foster Humility. Each Of Us Is A Potential Source Of Foolishness, Each Of Us Must Endure The Consequences Of The Foolishness Of Others, And In Addition To All Of That, Nature Frequently Works To Impress Upon Us Our Absurdity And Thereby Remind Us That We Are Not The Masters Of The Universe That We Like To Suppose We Are. - Odd Thomas - Odd Apocalypse By Dean Koontz Pg 62 Chapter 8

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 Is All I Know." He Murmured. "peace Is All I Want

Creating A Family In This Turbulent World Is An Act Of Faith, A Wager That Against All Odds There Will Be A Future, That Love Can Last, That The Heart Can Triumph Against All Adversities And Even Against The Grinding Wheel Of Time.

The Whisper Of The Dusk Is Night Shedding Its Husk.

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.

The Hard Rain Nailed The Night To The City.

...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.

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

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.

Little Mouse, You Were So Quick, So Bright, So Sweet, So Full Of Life. And You Still Are Everything You Were Then. None Of It’s Lost Forever. All That Promise, All That Hope, That Love And Goodness—it’s Still Inside You. No One Can Take The Gifts God Gave You. Only You.

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.

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.

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

I Have Been Reading Stephen King Since Carrie And Hope To Read Him For Many Years To Come.

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.

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

Each Reader Needs To Bring His Or Her Own Mind And Heart To The Text.

Funny, How One Good Cookie Could Calm The Mind And Even Elevate A Troubled Soul.

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.

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

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.

Being Polite Is Not Only The Right Way To Respond To People But Also The Easiest. Life Is So Filled With Unavoidable Conflict That I See No Reason To Promote More Confrontations.

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

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

He Felt ... A Suspicion-no, A Conviction-than He Had Been Abandoned, Forgotten, And That No One In The Whole World Cared Or Would Ever Care Enough About Him To Really Find Out What He Was Like And What His Dreams Were. He Was An Outcast, A Creature Somehow Vastly Different From All Other People, An Object Of Scorn And Derision, An Outsider, Secretly Loathed And Ridiculed By Everyone Who Met Him, Even By Those Few Who Professed To Love Him.

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

In Spite Of Where We Were, How We Had Gotten Here And Why We Had Come, I Felt That At This Moment Of Our Lives, This Place Was Exactly Where We Belonged. We Were Not Drifting But Rising, Rising Toward Something Right And Of Significance.

Fate Cannot Be Sidestepped Or Outrun.

Lies Hurt People; Imagination Makes Life More Fun.

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

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

Happiness Is A Choice

In Misfortune Lies The Seed Of Future Triumph.

One Of The Underlying Things I Like To Do In Books, Is Just Say, Stop And Look At This For A Moment. Not That You've Got To Believe That Jesus Was Real, Or Not To Believe In God, But The Belief That It Isn't Just Happenstance.

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.

The Wives Of Spartans Are The Secret Pillars Of The World."--odd Thomas

The Recognition Of Pain And Fear In Others Give Rise In Us To Pity, And In Our Pity Is Our Humanity, Our Redemption.

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

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

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.

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

The Functions Of Intellect Are Insufficient Without Courage, Love, Friendship, Compassion And Empathy.

Friendship Love

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.

Don't Tell Me What's Necessary, You Presumptupus Pup. What's Necessary Is Whatever I Wish To Do, Regardless Of How Unnecessary It Might Be.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Intuition Is Seeing With The Soul.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

What Doesn't Quicken Dies. That's An Indisputable Truth Of Life.

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.

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

The Destruction That Barbarians Leave Behind Has A Grim Fascination, Doesn't It? We're Reminded How Thin Is The Veneer Of Civilization.

Literary Fiction, As A Strict Genre, Is All But Dead. Meanwhile, Most Genres Flourish.

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.

The Mockery Of Friends Is Affectionate, And Inoculates Against Foolishness.

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.

Your Mind Always Does Worse Things Than People Can Show In A Movie.

A Fanatic Is A Nut Who Has Something To Believe In.

The True Nature Of The World Was Weirder Than Any Bizarre Fabric That Anyone Might Weave From The Warp And Weft Of Imagination's Loom.

Here In The Summer Desert, Winter Found My Blood

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

The Worst Happens When You Least Expect It

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.

Or Maybe They Were Just Doing It For Fun. A Lark. Their Religion Is Tolerant Of Extreme Forms Of Recreation. Boys Will Be Boys, After All, And Sociopathic Boys Will Be Sociopathic.

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.

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

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

The Desire To Write Well Can Never Be Fulfilled Without Hard Work.

Change Isn't Easy. Changing The Way You Live Means Changing The Way You Think, Means Changing What You Believe About Life. That's Hard.

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

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.

I Need Those Nukes, The Chief Said. I Need Them, I Need Them Right Now. I Don't Want To Be An Enabler, Sir. I'd Rather Get You Into A Twelve Step Program To Help You Break This Addiction.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

I Have Learned A Great Deal From Novels. Some Of It Is Even True.

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.

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

As An Adult I Discovered That I Was A Pretty Good Autodidact, And Can Teach Myself All Kind Of Things. And Developed A Great Interest In A Number Of Different Things From How To Build A Street Hot Rod From The Ground Up To Quantum Mechanics, And Those Two Different Kinds Of Mechanics, And It Was Really In The Sciences, Quantum Mechanics, Molecular Biology, I Would Begin Looking At These Things Looking For Ideas, But In Fact You Don't Read It For Ideas You Read It For Curiosity And Interest In The Subject.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

One Door Away From Heaven And The Key Is Ours To Lose. One Door Away From Heaven But Oh, The Entry Dues.

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

I Believe In The Possibility Of Miracles But, More To The Point, I Believe In Our Need For Them.

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

It Will All Be Better In The End And If It Is Not Better Then It Must Not Be The End Yet

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

One Of The Things I Like Enormously About Bob Weinstein Is That That He's The Only Studio Head I Have Ever Known Who Will Change His Mind And Say He Was Wrong.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Any Drunk Who Has Tried To Put His Car Where A Lamppost Stands Is A Self-educated Physicist.

In My Books, I Never Portray Violence As A Reasonable Solution To A Problem. If The Lead Characters In The Story Are Driven To It, It's At The Extreme End Of Their Experience.

To Many People, Free Will Is A License To Rebel Not Against What Is Unjust Or Hard In Life But Against What Is Best For Them And True.

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.

Faced With The Challenge Of An Endless Universe, Man Will Be Forced To Mature Further, Just As The Neanderthal-faced With An Entire Planet-had No Choice But To Grow Away From The Tradition Of Savagery.

Six Billion Of Us Walking The Planet, Six Billion Smaller Worlds On The Bigger One. Shoe Salesmen And Short-order Cooks Who Look Boring From The Outside - Some Have Weirder Lives Than You. Six Billion Stories, Every One An Epic, Full Of Tragedy And Triumph, Good And Evil, Despair And Hope. You And Me - We Aren't So Special, Bro.

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.

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.

I Am Basically A Pretty Good Autodidact. I Can Teach Myself Things.

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.

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.

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

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

His Blue Eyes Were Seas Where Sorrow Sailed.

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 Can't Go On To Page Two Until I Can Get Page One As Perfect As I Can Make It. That Might Mean I Will Rewrite And Rewrite Page One 20, 30, 50, 100 Times.

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?

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

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.

I Have Avoided Becoming Stale By Putting A Little Water On The Plate, Lying On The Plate, And Having Myself Refreshed In A Toaster Oven For 23 Minutes Once Every Month.

Despair Is Good. Despair Can Be The Nadir Of One Life And The Starting Point Of An Ascent Into Another, Better One.

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.

Life, Stormy Says, Is Not About How Fast You Run Or Even With What Degree Of Grace. It's About Perseverance, About Staying On Your Feet And Slogging Forward No Matter What.

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.

Grief Is A Healthy Emotion, And It's Healthy To Embrace It. By Accepting Loss, We Clarify Our Values And The Meaning Of Our Lives.

Everything Happens For A Reason

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?

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.

A Long Walk And Grooming With A Well-mannered Dog Is A Zen Experience That Leaves You Refreshed And In A Creative Frame Of Mind.

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

If Wishes Were Filet Mignon, We'd Always Eat Well At Dinner

Books Are Packaged Dreams.

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

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.

Every Human Being Has Appetites Difficult To Control But Far Fewer Have Humility, Gentleness, And An Awareness Of Their Weaknesses.

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

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

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

I Admit To Having An Imagination Feverish Enough To Melt Good Judgment.

Even If God Exists, Does He Know That You Do?

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.

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

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