Quotes by Dean Koontz

Truth is always stranger than fiction. We craft fiction to match our sense of how things ought to be, but truth cannot be crafted. Truth is, and truth has a way of astonishing us to our knees. Reminding us, that the universe does not exist to fulfill our expectations. Because we are imperfect beings who are self-blinded to the truth of the world’s stunning complexity, we shave reality to paper thin theories and ideologies that we can easily grasp – and we call them truths. But the truth of a sea in all it’s immensity cannot be embodied in one tidewashed pebble.

Language cant describe reality. Literature has no stable reference, no real meaning. Each readers interpretation is equally valid, more important than the authors 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, lets have another scotch.

People hide truths about themselves from themselves. Such self-deception is a coping mechanism, and to one extent or another, most people begin deceiving themselves when theyre children.

Because God is never cruel, there is a reason for all things. We must know the pain of loss; because if we never knew it, we would have no compassion for others, and we would become monsters of self-regard, creatures of unalloyed self-interest. The terrible pain of loss teaches humility to our prideful kind, has the power to soften uncaring hearts, to make a better person of a good one.

You can con God and get away with it, Granny said, if you do so with charm and wit. If you live your life with imagination and verve, God will play along just to see what outrageously entertaining thing youll do next.

Of course, in the process, you must never do harm to others in any serious way, or youll cease to amuse Him. Then payment comes due for promises you didnt keep.

My parents didnt raise me to ask God for blessings or benefits. For guidance, yes. For the strength to do the right thing, yes. Not for a winning lottery number, not for love or health, or happiness. Prayer is not a gimme list; God isnt Santa Claus.

For the likes of you, the path to happiness is one mean son of a bitch of a path.

No one can grant you happiness. Happiness is a choice we all have the power to make.

Home was not a perfect place. But it was the only home they had and they could hope to make it better.

Imagine that you are more than nothing. Evil made you, but you are no more evil than a child unborn. If you want, if you seek, if you hope, who is to say that your hope might not be answered?

What will happen will happen. There is time for miracles until there is no more time, but time has no end.

For a long time things were so bad. Very bad. Dark even when there was light.The only thing that kept the dark back was the Forever Shiny Thing that was her secret...It is a word...the word hangs on a silver chain. The word is HOPE.

Hope wasnt a cottage industry; it was neither a product that she could manufacture like needlepoint samplers nor a substance she could secrete, in her cautious solitude, like a maple tree producing the essence of syrup. Hope was to be found in other people, by reaching out, by taking risks, by opening her fortress heart.

When you have dogs, you witness their uncomplaining acceptance of suffering, their bright desire to make the most of life in spite of the limitations of age and disease, their calm awareness of the approaching end when their final hours come. They accept death with a grace that I hope I will one day be brave enough to muster.

A man begins dying at the moment of his birth. Most People live in denial of Deaths patient courtship until, late in life and deep in sickness, they become aware of him sitting bedside.

The dead are merely the countrymen of my future.

That is, Jack thought, the way of life. The horror changes us, because we can never forget. Cursed with memory. It starts when were old enough to know what death is and realize that sooner or later well lose everyone we love. Were never the same. But somehow were all right. We go on.

Being alone can be good. Its easy to find peace alone. But sometimes, being alone is a king of death.

How obvious can it be? ... The purpose of makeup is to defy the degradations of time, and time is just a synonym for death.