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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.

-Dean Koontz

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When Social Forces Press

Dean Koontz

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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.

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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.

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.

Best Thing That Can Happen To A Man Is A Good Woman.

In This World Only The Paranoid Survive.

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

Happiness Is A Choice

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

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.

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.

Your Sense Of Responsibility To Others Can Never Be Excessive.

Responsibility To Others

Sense Of Responsibility

Intuition Is Seeing With The Soul.

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.

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

Good Fences Make Good Neighbors, And These Were Apparently Good Enough That They Had Not Felt The Need For Razor Wire At The Top. I Crested The Fence, Threw Myself Into The Yard Beyond, Fell, Rolled To My Feet, And Ran With The Expectation Of Being Garroted By A Taut Clothesline. I Heard Panting, Looked Down, And Saw A Gold Retriever Running At My Side, Ears Flapping. The Dog Glanced Up At Me Tongue Rolling, Grinning, As Though Jazzed By The Prospect Of An Unscheduled Play Session.

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

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.

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

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.

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

You Have To Stop Worrying About Looking Foolish, 'cause Fear Of Being Humiliated Really Limits You.

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.

Pain Can Be Endured And Defeated Only If It Is Embraced. Denied Or Feared, It Grows.

We Live In God's Amusement Park.

Amusement Parks

Being Paid Well For Something You Love To Do - It's A Grace.

Something You Love

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

The Saddest Thing In The World Was That Human Beings, For All Their Ardent Striving And Desire, Could Never Achieve Physical, Emotional, Or Intellectual Perfection. The Species Was Doomed To Imperfection; It Thrashed Forever In Despair Or Denial Of That Fact.

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.

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.

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

Being Alone Can Be Good. It's Easy To Find Peace Alone. But Sometimes, Being Alone Is A King Of Death.

Maybe There's Nothing Impossible Tonight. We're Down The Hole To Wonderland, And No White Rabbit To Guide Us." If I Remember Correctly, The White Rabbit Was An Unreliable Guide, Anyway.

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

Acting Is A Marvelous Profession ... If You Can Spend Enough Time Playing Other People, You Don't Have To Think Too Much About Your Own Character And Motivations.

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.

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.

This World, Which Has The Potential To Be Eden, Is Instead The Hell Before Hell. In Our Arrogance, We Have Made It So.

Sorrow Is Not A Raven Perched Persistently Above A Chamber Door. Sorrow Is A Thing With Teeth, And While In Time It Retreats, It Comes Back At The Whisper Of It's Name.

Petting, Scratching, And Cuddling A Dog Could Be As Soothing To The Mind And Heart As Deep Meditation And Almost As Good For The Soul As Prayer.

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

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

I Survive By Finding The Sweet Spot Between Reason And Unreason, Between The Rational And Irrational.

Those Who Wish To Punish The Current And Future Generations For The Inequities Of A Generation Long Gone, And Who Equate Justice With Revenge, Are The Most Dangerous People In The World.

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

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.

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?

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

If I Drive Myself To The Brink Of My Ability, Then I Don't Get Stale Or Bored.

Of Course, I Don't Know Everything. Considering The Infinite Amount Of Knowledge That One Could Acquire In A Virtually Innumerable Array Of Intellectual Disciplines, It's Probably More Accurate To Say That I Don't Know Anything.

Nothing Is Worse Than Being Alone On The Evening Of The Day When One's Cow Has Exploded.

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?

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.

Where There's Cake, There's Hope. And There's Always Cake.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

One Of The Greatest Gifts We Receive From Dogs Is The Tenderness They Evoke In Us

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.

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

There Are No Explanations For Human Evil. Only Excuses.

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

Never, Never Try To Scope The Market.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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But The More People We Love And The More Deeply We Love Them, The More Vulnerable We Are To Loss And Grief And Loneliness.

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

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.

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.

We Have A Responsibility To Stand Watch Over One Another, We Are Watchers, All Of Us, Watchers, Guarding Against The Darkness.

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

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

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.

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

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

Although The Constant Shadow Of Certain Death Looms Over Everyday, The Pleasures And Joys Of Life Can Be So Fine And Affecting That The Heart Is Nearly Stilled In Astonishment.

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

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.

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

Wealth Is Power, And Power Is The Only Thing About Which Contemporary Culture Cares.

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.

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.

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.

Lots Of People Are Unable To See All Kinds Of Truths Right In Front Of Their Eyes." "the World Is What We Make It, And Our Future Is Ours To Shape.

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.

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

A Silent Dark...as Black As A Moonless Lake, As A Ravine's Wings, Darkness There And Nothing More, Merely This And Nothing More.

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.

Alliteration Seems To Offend People.

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

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

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

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

The Less Depth A Belief System Has, The Greater The Fervency With Which Its Adherents Embrace It. The Most Vociferous, The Most Fanatical Are Those Whose Cobbled Faith Is Founded On The Shakiest Grounds.

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

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

Not All Popular Novelists Are Good, But All Good Novelists Are, Sooner Or Later, Popular.

Sooner Or Later

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.

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.

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.

Because People See Violence On The Movie Screen, They're Not Going To Go Out And Hold Up A Liquor Store And Kill Somebody. It Really Doesn't Correlate.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Most Universities Are No Longer Temples Of Knowledge, But Of Power, And True Moderns Worship There.

After Once Having Made The Mistake Of Watching Television News, I Had Worried For A While About An Asteroid Hitting The Earth And Wiping Out Human Civilization. The Anchorwoman Had Said It Was Not Merely Possible But Probable. At The End Of The Report, She Smiled.

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

I Am My Own Worst Enemy. This, More Than Any Other Trait, Proves My Fundamental Humanity.

The Truth Was Stranger Than The Official Fiction.

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

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.

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.

Pure, Hard-core Liberals Believe In A Superior Race. They Think They're It. They Believe They're More Intelligent Than The General Run Of Mankind, Better Suited Than The Little People Are To Manage The Little People's Lives. They Think They Have The One True Vision, The Ability To Solve All The Moral Dilemmas Of The Century. They Prefer Big Government Because That Is The First Step To Totalitarianism, Toward Unquestioned Rule By The Elite. And Of Course They See Themselves As The Elite.

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.

Fire, Ice, Asteroids And Pole Shifts Are Bogeymen With Which We Distract Ourselves From The Real Threat Of Our Time. In An Age When Everyone Invents His Own Truth, There Is No Community, Only Factions. Without Community, There Can Be No Consensus To Resist The Greedy, The Envious, The Power-mad Narcissists Who Seize Control And Turn The Institutions Of Civilization Into A Series Of Doom Machines.

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

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

He Said, If You Allow Yourself To Be Enchanted By The Beauty To Be Seen In Even Ordinary Things, Then All Things Proved To Be Extraordinary.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Books Are Packaged Dreams.

Doubt Is Poison. It Leads To A Loss Of Faith In Yourself, And In All That's Good And True.

Fear Is A Hammer, And When The People Are Beaten Finally To The Conviction That Their Existence Hangs By A Frayed Thread, They Will Be Led Where They Need To Go.

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

Although Charismatic, James Dean Is No Harrison Ford. In The Majority Of His Movies, Sooner Or Later He Got The Crap Beaten Out Of Him.

It May Sound Strange, But When You're A Kid And You're In That Environment, For Some Reason For A Long Time You Think, When The Doors Are Closed In Other Houses, This Is What It's Like Everywhere. And Then At Some Point You Begin To Realize That Isn't True, And Books Were Really The Educational System That Showed Me That There Were Many Better And Different Ways To Live A Life.

No One Can Genuinely Love The World, Which Is Too Large To Love Entire. To Love All The World At Once Is Pretense Or Dangerous Self-delusion. Loving The World Is Like Loving The Idea Of Love, Which Is Perilous Because, Feeling Virtuous About This Grand Affection, You Are Freed From The Struggles And The Duties That Come With Loving People As Individuals.

Like All Of Us In This Storm Between Birth And Death, I Can Wreak No Great Changes On The World, Only Small Changes For The Better, I Hope, In The Lives Of Those I Love.

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.

Reality Isn't What It Used To Be.

I Am No Theologian. I Would Not Be Surprised, However, If Heaven Proved To Be A Cozy Kitchen, Where Delicious Treats Appeared In The Oven And In The Refrigerator Whenever You Wanted Them, And Where The Cupboards Were Full Of Good Books.

Golden Retrievers Are Not Bred To Be Guard Dogs, And Considering The Size Of Their Hearts And Their Irrepressible Joy In Life, They Are Less Likely To Bite Than To Bark, Less Likely To Bark Than To Lick A Hand In Greeting. In Spite Of Their Size, They Think They Are Lap Dogs, And In Spite Of Being Dogs, They Think They Are Also Human, And Nearly Every Human They Meet Is Judged To Have The Potential To Be A Boon Companion Who Might, At Many Moment, Cry, "let's Go!" And Lead Them On A Great Adventure.

Human Beings Can Always Be Relied Upon To Exert, With Vigor, Their God-given Right To Be Stupid.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Language Can't Describe Reality. Literature Has No Stable Reference, No Real Meaning. Each Reader's Interpretation Is Equally Valid, More Important Than The Author's Intention. In Fact, Nothing In Life Has Meaning. Reality Is Subjective. Values And Truths Are Subjective. Life Itself Is A Kind Of Illusion. Blah, Blah, Blah, Let's Have Another Scotch.

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.

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.

Some People Think Only Intellect Counts: Knowing How To Solve Problems, Knowing How To Get By, Knowing How To Identify An Advantage And Seize It. But The Functions Of Intellect Are Insufficient Without Courage, Love, Friendship, Compassion, And Empathy.

There's Lots Of Law These Days, But Not Much Justice.

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.

What Will Happen Will Happen. There Is Time For Miracles Until There Is No More Time, But Time Has No End.

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

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.

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.

A Great Deal Of Phenomenal Experience Has Fostered In Me A Flexibility Of The Mind And Imagination That Some Might Call Madness

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

Y'all Take Care Of Yourself Now... Strange And Interesting Friends Are Hard To Find.

Modesty Is Related To Diffidence, Diffidence Is Related To Shyness, Shyness Is A Synonym For Timidity, Timidity Is A Characteristic Of The Meek, The Meek Do Not Inherit The Earth, They Serve Those Who Are Self Confident And Self Assertive.

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.

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

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

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

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

The Hatred Of Truth Is The Taproot Of Violence.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

It's Only Life. We All Get Through It. Not All Of Us Complete The Journey In The Same Condition. Along The Way, Some Lose Their Legs Or Eyes In Acidents Or Altercations, While Others Skate Through The Years With Nothing Worse To Worry About Than An Occassional Bad-hair Day. I Still Possessed Both Legs And Both Eyes, And Even My Hair Looked All Right When I Rose That Wednesday Morning In Late January. If I Returned To Bed Sixteen Hours Later, Having Lost All My Hair But Nothing Else, I Would Consider The Day A Triumph. Even Minus A Few Teeth, I'd Call It A Triumph.

The Only Thing We Can't Buy More Of Is Time." She Said. "and Dodo Birds. We Can't Buy Any More Of Them. They're Extinct. And Dinosaurs.

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.

I Think The World Is An Interesting Place And I Don't Think Anybody Has The Firm And Final Answer To What It Is But I Kind Of Assume There's A Purpose.

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Gael Garcia Bernal

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