Quotes from Saint Odd

Dean Koontz ·  352 pages

Rating: (15.6K votes)


“I never knew whether I was drawn to eccentric people or if they were drawn to me.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Saint Odd


“Sometimes, when I'm feeling sorry for myself, it seems that I'm made to carry an impossibly heavy weight, the crushing weight of losing her. I have moments of bitterness and doubt. You know? But the weight is a blessing, really, and I shouldn't be bitter about it. The weight is on my heart because I knew her and loved her. The weight is the accumulation of all we had together, all the hopes and worries, all the laughs, the picnics at St. Bart's bell tower, the adventures we shared because of my gift... If they had taken her away on their yacht, if I had never met her, there would be no weight to carry—and no memories to sustain me.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Saint Odd


“When I was no longer of the world, I would miss its extravagant beauty. I would miss the complex and charming layers of subterfuge by which the truth of the world’s mysteries were withheld from us even as we were tantalized and enchanted by them. I would miss the kindness of good people who were compassionate when so many were pitiless, who made their way through so much corruption without being corrupted themselves, who eschewed envy in a world of envy, who eschewed greed in a world of greed, who valued truth and could not be drowned in a sea of lies, for they shone and, by the light they cast, they had warmed me all my life.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Saint Odd


“...and where the Ferris wheel carried its passengers high and brought them low and raised them high and brought them low again, as if it were not merely a carnival ride but also a metaphor for the basic pattern of human experience.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Saint Odd


“Being known by everyone is not the same as being loved.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Saint Odd



“After a silence, because he knew me well, he said, "Not all wounds are the bleeding kind.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Saint Odd


“They say that necessity is the mother of invention, but it is also the grandmother of desperation.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Saint Odd


“Free will," she agreed, "our greatest gift, the thing that makes life worth living, in spite of all the anguish it brings.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Saint Odd


“Truly tough guys never say they’re tough.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Saint Odd


“I disliked guns, but I learned to use them. I had come to understand guns, that they were tools and that they were no more evil, in their essence, than pliers and wrenches. At times, they were a necessity. In a world of evil, they were often also a blessing. Now and then, as I’ve said, I was able to”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Saint Odd



“...Here lie your hopes and dreams, shattered and swept aside...”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Saint Odd


“I knew that suffering can purify, that it's a kind of fire that can be worth enduring, but there were degrees of it to which I chose not to subject myself.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Saint Odd


“...on a subconscious level we're aware that time isn't enduring, that it is not a required condition of our existence, that there comes a point when we will have no need of it.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Saint Odd


“Some dreams matter. Most don't. Often it can be hard to know which might be which.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Saint Odd


“In this world, Evil works through countless surrogates. Its name is Legion. But Good works through surrogates, as well, and they are legion, too.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Saint Odd



“The problem with omens is that they never come with an illustrated pamphlet explaining what they mean.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Saint Odd


“Our world was a battleground on which good and evil clashed, and many of the combatants on the dark side were known to everyone. Terrorists, dictators, politicians who were merchants of lies and hate, crooked businessmen in league with them, power-mad bureaucrats, corrupted policemen, embezzlers, street thugs, rapists, and their ilk waged part of the war, and their actions were what made the evening news so colorful and depressing. But those fighting in that dark army had their secret schemes, too, intentions and desires and goals that would make their public villainy seem almost innocent by comparison. They were assisted by other politicians who concealed their hatred and envy, by judges who secretly had no respect for the law, by clergymen who in private worshipped nothing but money or the tender bodies of children, by celebrities who trumpeted their concern for the common man while in their off-screen lives assiduously hobnobbing with and advancing the interests of the elite of elites.… The war unseen by most people was one of clandestine militias, unincorporated businesses, unchartered organizations, philosophical movements that could not survive fresh air and sunlight, secretive coalitions of lunatics who didn’t recognize their own lunacy, nature cults and science cults and religious cults.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Saint Odd


“Free will,” she agreed, “our greatest gift, the thing that makes life worth living, in spite of all the anguish it brings.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Saint Odd


“Sympathy is a nobler feeling than pity. But if sympathy is the principal reason that one person is drawn to another, there will always be an unbridgeable chasm between friendship and genuine love.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Saint Odd


“Too many years of watching old Warner Bros. cartoons by Chuck Jones can instill in you a silliness gene by proxy.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Saint Odd



“I needed more time to think. And a better brain with which to do the thinking.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Saint Odd


“Everything barbarians do is nothing, no matter how loudly they insist it’s something.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Saint Odd


“No offense intended to the satanists who might be reading this, but I have found that those who worship the devil tend to be sneaky, more deceitful by far than your average Methodist—and proud of it.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Saint Odd


“Proceeding with caution and proceeding slowly are sometimes two different things. In certain circumstances, momentum could be more important than caution,
though it was never wise to dispense with wariness.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Saint Odd


“I suspected eccentricity was often if not always a response to pain, a defense mechanism against anguish and torment and sorrow.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Saint Odd



“The source of magic in this world is more mysterious than all the explanations that sorcerers and wizards have given for it, and it is more prevalent than can be understood by those who live according to the constricted form of reason so prevalent in our time.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Saint Odd


“we are born into time only to be born out of it, after living through the cycles of the seasons, under stars that turn because the world turns, born into ignorance and acquiring knowledge that ultimately reveals to us our enduring ignorance: The circle is the essential pattern of our existence.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Saint Odd


“As I turned to leave the tent, she said, "Don't worry. Your own mother wouldn't know you."

I said, "She never has.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Saint Odd


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About the author

Dean Koontz
Born place: in Everett, Pennsylvania, The United States
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Popular quotes

“Tell me something, Noah. Which is more important: freedom or happiness?'

What was this, a game? But Nijinsky wasn't smiling.

'You can't be happy unless your free,' Noah said.”
― Michael Grant, quote from BZRK


“У меня в Москве — купола горят!
У меня в Москве — колокола звонят!
И гробницы в ряд у меня стоят, —
В них царицы спят, и цари.

И не знаешь ты, что зарёй в Кремле
Легче дышится — чем на всей земле!
И не знаешь ты, что зарёй в Кремле
Я молюсь тебе — до зари!

И проходишь ты над своей Невой
О ту пору, как над рекой-Москвой
Я стою с опущенной головой,
И слипаются фонари.

Всей бессонницей я тебя люблю,
Всей бессонницей я тебе внемлю —
О ту пору, как по всему Кремлю
Просыпаются звонари…

Но моя река — да с твоей рекой,
Но моя рука — да с твоей рукой
Не сойдутся, Радость моя, доколь
Не догонит заря — зари.

7 мая 1916

At home in Moscow - where the domes are burning,
at home in Moscow - in the sound of bells,
where I live the tombs - in their rows are standing
and in them Tsaritsas - are asleep and tsars.

And you don't know how - at dawn the Kremlin is
the easiest place to - breathe in the whole wide earth
and you don't know when - dawn reaches the Kremlin
I pray to you until - the next day comes

and I go with you - by your river Neva
even while beside - the Moscow river
I am standing here - with my head lowered
and the line of street lights - sticks fast together.

With my insomnia - I love you wholly.
With my insomnia - I listen for you,
just at the hour throughout - the Kremlin, men
who ring the bells - begin to waken,

Still my river - and your river
still my hand - and your hand
will never join, or not until
one dawn catches up another dawning.”
― Marina Tsvetaeva, quote from Selected Poems


“What you need Lois, is a man. All your artistic brilliance, wasted, toiling away in the sordid day-to-day of White’s little paper empire. Reporting on traffic mishaps. Domestic trifles. Wondering if you can afford a pair of shoes. Knowing you can’t afford the really good wines, the really exquisite things. That suit, for instance. Nice, but not the standard you’re used to.” “We’re not here to discuss my wardrobe.” “Or your writing career? How much have you gotten done, I mean, really done Lois?” “Still looking for an evening you aren’t exhausted? When will that be, Lois?” “The hotel. Or I’m out of here.” – Lois Lane & Lex Luthor”
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“I'll be inside the one who holds you. And then I won't be. ”
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