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Dean Koontz Quotes

Total quotes: 40
“No one can grant you happiness. Happiness is a choice we all have the power to make.”
— Dean Koontz, Life Expectancy: A Novel
Tagged: Happiness, Choices, Power, Decisions
“When we make our own misery we sometimes cling to it even when we want so bad to change, because misery is something we know. The misery is comfortable.”
— Dean Koontz, One Door Away from Heaven: A Novel
Tagged: Misery, Change, comfortable
“Darkness dwells within even the best of us. In the worst of us, darkness not only dwells but reins.”
— Dean Koontz, Strange Highways
Tagged: Darkness, Evil, humanity
“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.”
— Dean Koontz, Odd Thomas
Tagged: Fate, Choices, Free Will, Decisions
“A scar is not always a flaw. Sometimes a scar may be redemption inscribed in the flesh, a memorial to something endured, to something lost.”
— Dean Koontz, The Good Guy: A Novel
Tagged: Scars, Flaws, Loss, Redemption
“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.”
— Dean Koontz, Velocity: A Novel
Tagged: Pain, Fear, Reality, Anger, Justice
“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.”
— Dean Koontz, 77 Shadow Street
Tagged: smiling, Positivity, Optimism
“Sometimes there is no darker place than our own thoughts; the moonless midnight of the mind.”
— Dean Koontz, Fear Nothing: A Novel (Christopher Snow)
Tagged: Thoughts, minds, Darkness
“I'm alive but I have no life. I'm alive but also dead. I'm dead and alive.”
— Dean Koontz, Dead And Alive
Tagged: alive, dead
“You can't fix things with a hug, but you can't make them any worse either.”
— Dean Koontz, Brother Odd
Tagged: Hugging, Love, Touch
“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.”
— Dean Koontz, Forever Odd: An Odd Thomas Novel
Tagged: worry, Stress, surprise, Shock
“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.”
— Dean Koontz, False Memory
Tagged: Dogs, meditation, prayer
“Once you have had a wonderful dog, a life without one, is a life diminished.”
— Dean Koontz, A Big Little Life: A Memoir of a Joyful Dog
Tagged: Dogs, Life, Pets, owners
“Never leave a friend behind. Friends are all we have to get us through this life--and they are the only things from this world that we could hope to see in the next.”
— Dean Koontz, Fear Nothing: A Novel (Christopher Snow)
Tagged: Friends, Friendship, Love
“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, Your Heart Belongs to Me: A Novel
Tagged: humanity, Love, Desperate
“Given enough time, you could convince yourself that loneliness was something better, that it was solitude, the ideal condition for reflection, even a kind of freedom.”
— Dean Koontz, The Good Guy: A Novel
Tagged: Time, Loneliness, Freedom
“This world, which has the potential to be Eden, is instead the hell before Hell. In our arrogance, we have made it so.”
— Dean Koontz, Forever Odd: An Odd Thomas Novel
Tagged: Eden, Hell, Arrogance, humanity
“The most identifying trait of humanity is our ability to be inhumane to one another.”
— Dean Koontz, Odd Thomas: An Odd Thomas Novel
Tagged: humanity, inhumane, mean
“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.”
— Dean Koontz, Odd Thomas
Tagged: polite, Life, Conflict, kindness
“Pain can be endured and defeated only if it is embraced. Denied or feared, it grows in perception if not in reality.”
— Dean Koontz, Velocity
Tagged: Pain, Fear, Embraced
“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.”
— Dean Koontz, Life Expectancy: A Novel
Tagged: Expectations, Laughter, Love
“We are not strangers to ourselves, we only try to be.”
— Dean Koontz, Odd Thomas: An Odd Thomas Novel
Tagged: Strangers, Distance, ourselves
“Inaction counted as a choice.”
— Dean Koontz, Velocity: A Novel
Tagged: inaction, Choices, Decisions
“Love is absorbing, related to affection but stronger, full of appreciation for—and delight in—the other person, marked by a desire always to please and benefit her or him, always to smooth the loved one’s way through the roughness of the days and to do everything possible to make her or him feel profoundly valued.”
— Dean Koontz, Innocence (with bonus short story Wilderness): A Novel
Tagged: Love, affection, Value
“What we fear too much we often bring to pass.”
— Dean Koontz, Odd Apocalypse: An Odd Thomas Novel
Tagged: Fear, Stress, worry
“No one's life should be rooted in fear. We are born for wonder, for joy, for hope, for love, to marvel at the mystery of existence, to be ravished by the beauty of the world, to seek truth and meaning, to acquire wisdom, and by our treatment of others to brighten the corner where we are.”
— Dean Koontz, Life Expectancy: A Novel
Tagged: Life, Fear, beauty, Wisdom
“There are no explanations for human evil. Only excuses.”
— Dean Koontz, Intensity: A Novel
Tagged: Evil, excuses, explanations
“When we hope, we usually hope for the wrong thing.”
— Dean Koontz, Brother Odd: An Odd Thomas Novel
Tagged: Hope, Wrong, Mistakes
“In tragedy and despair, when an endless night seems to have fallen, hope can be found in the realization that 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.”
— Dean Koontz, Lightning
Tagged: Despair, Tragedy, Hope, Death
“What really holds their marriage together are mutual respect of an awesome depth, a shared sense of humor, faith that they were brought together by a force greater than themselves, and a love so unwavering and pure that it is sacred.”
— Dean Koontz, Forever Odd: An Odd Thomas Novel
Tagged: Marriage, Respect, Sense of Humor, Love
“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.”
— Dean Koontz, Relentless: A Novel
Tagged: Evil, Family, Faith, Time, Relentless
“We yearn for tomorrow and the progress that it represents. But yesterday was once tomorrow, and where was progress in it? Or we yearn for yesterday, for what was or what might have been. But as we are yearning, the present is becoming the past, so the past is nothing but our yearning for second chances.”
— Dean Koontz, Brother Odd: An Odd Thomas Novel
Tagged: tomorrow, yesterday, Second Chances, Progress
“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.”
— Dean Koontz, Watchers
Tagged: Worthless, Love, Being Loved
“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.”
— Dean Koontz, Winter Moon: A Novel
Tagged: Horror, Memories, Death, Survival
“Be happy. Persevere.”
— Dean Koontz, Odd Thomas: An Odd Thomas Novel
Tagged: Happiness, Persevere, Keep Going
“Dogs needed no words to console you. Dogs were the ultimate practitioners of the therapy of touch. Dogs knew and accepted the hard realities of life that human beings could not acknowledge until those obvious truths were exhaustively described with words, and even then there was often more bitter acknowledgment than humble acceptance.”
— Dean Koontz, Ashley Bell: A Novel
Tagged: Dogs, therapy, Life
“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.”
— Dean Koontz, A Big Little Life: A Memoir of a Joyful Dog
Tagged: Dogs, Happiness, Love
“No matter how close we are to another person, few human relationships are as free from strife, disagreement, and frustration as is the relationship you have with a good dog. Few human beings give of themselves to another as a dog gives of itself. I also suspect that we cherish dogs because their unblemished souls make us wish - consciously or unconsciously - that we were as innocent as they are, and make us yearn for a place where innocence is universal and where the meanness, the betrayals, and the cruelties of this world are unknown.”
— Dean Koontz, A Big Little Life
Tagged: Dogs, Pets, innocent, Relationships
“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.”
— Dean Koontz, From the Corner of His Eye: A Novel
Tagged: kindness, Hatred, Evil, Courage
“Grief can destroy you -- or focus you. You can decide a relationship was all for nothing if it had to end in death, and you alone. OR you can realize that every moment of it had more meaning than you dared to recognize at the time, so much meaning it scared you, so you just lived, just took for granted the love and laughter of each day, and didn't allow yourself to consider the sacredness of it. But when it's over and you're alone, you begin to see that it wasn't just a movie and a dinner together, not just watching sunsets together, not just scrubbing a floor or washing dishes together or worrying over a high electric bill. It was everything, it was the why of life, every event and precious moment of it. 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. And the ache is always there, but one day not the emptiness, because to nurture the emptiness, to take solace in it, is to disrespect the gift of life.”
— Dean Koontz, Odd Hours: An Odd Thomas Novel
Tagged: Grief, Relationships, Love, Life
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