“If we were always conscious of the fact that people precious to us are frighteningly mortal, hanging not even by a thread, but by a wisp of gossamer, perhaps we would be kinder to them and more grateful for the love and friendship they give to us.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Seize the Night
“Her beauty is not just—or even primarily—physical. In her face, I see her wisdom, her compassion, her courage, her eternal glory. This other beauty, this spiritual beauty—which is the deepest truth of her—sustains me in times of fear and despair, as other truths might sustain a priest enduring martyrdom at the hands of a tyrant. I see nothing blasphemous in equating her grace with the mercy of God, for the one is a reflection of the other. The selfless love that we give to others to the point of being willing to sacrifice our lives for them, is all the proof I need that human beings are not mere animals of self-interest; we carry within us a divine spark, and if we chose to recognize it, our lives have dignity, meaning, hope. In her it is spark is bright, a light that heals rather than wounds me.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Seize the Night
“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.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Seize the Night
“Hand-to-hand combat with three hundred pounds of screaming monkey menace is not my idea of a fair fight. My idea of a fair fight is one unarmed, toothless, nearsighted old monkey versus me with a Blackhawk attack helicopter.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Seize the Night
“He's got a chloroform-soaked rag in one hand, and before Judy realizes what's happening, the dude is all over her like fat on cheese.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Seize the Night
“We are the most alive and closest to the meaning of existence when we are most vulnerable, when experience has humbled us and has cured the arrogance which, like a form of deafness, prevents us from hearing the lessons that this world teaches.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Seize the Night
“With friends, this is a cool world; without friends, it would be unbearably cold.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Seize the Night
“To say that I am living on borrowed time would be
not merely a cliché but also an understatement. My
entire life has been a heavily mortgaged enterprise.
But so is yours. Eventual foreclosure awaits all of
us. More likely than not, I’ll receive my notice before
you do, though yours, too, is in the mail.
Nevertheless, until the postman comes, be happy.
There is no other rational response but happiness.
Despair is a foolish squandering of precious time.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Seize the Night
“I must exist in shadows, while you live under exquisitely blue skies, and yet I don't hate you for the freedom that you take for granted-although I do envy you.
I don't hate you because, after all, you are human, too, and therefore have limitations of your own. Perhaps you are homely, slow-witted or too smart for your own good, deaf or mute or blind, by nature given to despair or to self-hatred, or perhaps you are unusually fearful of Death himself. We all have burdens. On the other hand, if you are better-looking and smarter than I am, blessed with five sharp senses, even more optimistic than I am, with plenty of self-esteem, and if you also share my refusal to be humbled by the Reaper. . . well, then I could almost hate you if I didn't know that, like all of us in this imperfect world, you also have a haunted heart and a mind troubled by grief, by loss, by longing.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Seize the Night
“If we were always conscious of the fact that people precious to us are frighteningly mortal, hanging not even by a thread but by a wisp of gossamer, perhaps we would be kinder to them and more grateful for the love and friendship they give us.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Seize the Night
“The cataract of grief is a longer drop than Niagara, and I guess I've not reached the river of acceptance at the bottom.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Seize the Night
“Between a man and woman in love, no lie is small or harmless.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Seize the Night
“There is no other rational response but happiness. Despair is a foolish squandering of precious time.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Seize the Night
“I am my own worst enemy. This, more than any other trait, proves my fundamental humanity.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Seize the Night
“This side of Eden, whether we realize it or not, we feel the stain on our souls, and at every opportunity, we try to scrub it away with steel-wool guilt.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Seize the Night
Dean Koontz
Born place: in Everett, Pennsylvania, The United States
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“...it was an intimate bond between the men of that generation ... for nothing brings men close together than a common misfortune happily overcome.”
― Ivo Andrić, quote from The Bridge on the Drina
“You can't imagine how stupid the whole world has grown nowadays.”
― Nikolai Gogol, quote from Dead Souls
“I'll write to you. A super-long letter, like in an old-fashioned novel”
― Haruki Murakami, quote from After Dark
“I want to touch you.” His words were against my lips now. “I want to feel what’s mine. What’s always been mine.”
― Penelope Douglas, quote from Bully
“There's a feeling of power in reserve, a power that drives right through the bone, like the shiver you sense in the shaft of an axe when you take it into your hand. You can strike, or you can not strike, and if you choose to hold back the blow, you can still feel inside you the resonance of the omitted thing.”
― Hilary Mantel, quote from Wolf Hall
How the Mind Works
Promise Me
Just in Case
Before Jamaica Lane
Someone to Run With
Rebel of the SandsBookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.
