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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?

-Dean Koontz

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Living In The Modern

Dean Koontz

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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?

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Given My Heritage And The Ordeal Of My Childhood, I Sometimes Wonder Why I Myself Am Not Insane. Maybe I Am.

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.

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.

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

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

That Was Interesting, Riding In The Trunk," Milo Said, "but I Wouldn't Want To Do It Again.

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

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.

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

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?

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

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

In Our Age, Self-indulgence And Self-destruction, Rather Than Self-sacrifice, Are The Foundations For New Heroic Myths.

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.

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.

Cowards Shrink From Toil And Peril, Vulgar Souls Attempt And Fail; Men Of Mettle, Nothing Daunted, Persevere Till They Prevail.

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

Perseverance Is Impossible If We Don't Permit Ourselves To Hope.

I Fall Down On The Side Of Free Will, Simply Because If You Look At Where I Came From, And What I Was Able To Do In My Life, What Was Able To Happen.

The Hatred Of Truth Is The Taproot Of Violence.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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Henry Norris Russell

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