Odd Thomas

From time to time, I do consider that I might be mad. Like any self-respecting lunatic, however, I am always quick to dismiss any doubts about my sanity.

Given my heritage and the ordeal of my childhood, I sometimes wonder why I myself am not insane. Maybe I am.

We are not strangers to ourselves, we only try to be.

..the most identifying trait of humanity is our ability to be inhumane to one another.

Nothing is worse than being alone on the evening of the day when one's cow has exploded.

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 you'll do next.

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.

Most people tend to think the best of those who are blessed with beauty; we have difficulty imagining that physical perfection can conceal twisted emotions or a damaged mind.

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.

I am twenty years old. To a world-wise adult, I am little more than a child. To any child, however, I am old enough to be distrusted, to be excluded forever from the magical community of the short and beardless.

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.

Too much mystery is merely an annoyance. Too much adventure is exhausting. And a little terror goes a long way.

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.

Best thing that can happen to a man is a good woman.

Evil was coming. I wondered whose face it would be wearing.

Any drunk who has tried to put his car where a lamppost stands is a self-educated physicist.

I see dead people. But, then by God, I do something about it!

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.

Some lives, conducted with grace, are beautiful arcs bridging this world to eternity.

here in the summer desert, winter found my blood

Writing isn't a source of pain. It's psychic chemotherapy. It reduces your psychological tumors and relieves your pain.

Perseverance is impossible if we don't permit ourselves to hope.

A short-order cook, just off work, makes easy tracking for lions and worse

You won't find the truth of life in morbidity, only in hope.

We may lack riches, but the greatest fortune is what lies in our hearts.

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 not strangers to ourselves; we only try to be.

The joys of life can be found anywhere. Far places only offer exotic ways to suffer.