“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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“I know this is probably sort of sudden." The boy hesitated. "But I was wodnering if you would care to go to the movies with me tomorrow night.”
― Beverly Cleary, quote from Fifteen
“To be young and not to know how, is bearable; to be old and not have the strength, is too great a weight to carry. And what's is so painful you can't sense your powers leaving you. It's hard for an old man to ensure such blows!”
― Ivan Turgenev, quote from Home of the Gentry
“for Captain Aubrey, as for the rest of brute creation, there were only two kinds of birds, the edible and the inedible.”
― Patrick O'Brian, quote from The Mauritius Command
“Dr. Bone Specialist came in, made me stand up and hobble across the room, checked my reflexes, and then made me lie down on the table. He bent my right knee this way and that, up and down, all the way out to the side and in. Then he did the same with my left leg. He ordered X rays then started to leave the room. I panicked. I MUST GET DRUGS.
"What can I take for the pain?" I asked him before he got out the door.
"You can take some over the counter ibuprofen," he suggested. "But I wouldn't take more than nine a day."
I choked. Nine a day? I'd been popping forty. Nine a day? Like hell. I couldn't even go to the bathroom on my own, I hadn't slept in three weeks, and my normally sunny cheery disposition had turned into that of a very rabid dog. If I didn't get good drugs and get them now, it was straight to Shooter's World and then Walgreens pharmacy for me.
"I don't think you understand," I explained. "I can't go to work. I have spent the last four days with my mother who is addicted to QVC, watching jewelry shows, doll shows and make-up shows. I almost ordered a beef-jerky maker! Give me something, or I'm going to use your calf muscles to make the first batch!"
Without further ado, he hastily scribbled out a prescription for some codeine and was gone. I was happy.
My mother, however, had lost the ability to speak.”
― Laurie Notaro, quote from The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club: True Tales from a Magnificent and Clumsy Life
“She was still thinking of your safety p. 362”
― Jessica Grant, quote from Come, Thou Tortoise
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