01c. 1945 ADYou do what you have to do. That's who you seem to be to me, anyway. You're one who does what he has to do.Dean Koontz / quote ↗
03c. 1945 ADNone of us can ever save himself; we are the instruments of one another’s salvation, and only by the hope that we give to others do we lift ourselves out of the darkness into light.Dean Koontz / quote ↗
04c. 1945 ADBesides, I can't get to where I want to go by conscious or unconscious suicide. I've got my strange little life to lead. Leading it the best I can - that's how I buy the ticket to where I want to be.Dean Koontz / quote ↗
05c. 1945 ADI'm alive but I have no life. I'm alive but also dead. I'm dead and alive.Dean Koontz / quote ↗
06c. 1945 ADJocko likes salty, Jocko likes sweet, but never bring Jocko any hot sauce, like with jalapenos, because it makes Jocko squirt funny-smelling stuff out his ears.Dean Koontz / quote ↗
08c. 1945 ADOnce you have had a wonderful dog, a life without one, is a life diminished.Dean Koontz / quote ↗
09c. 1945 ADGolden retrievers are not bred to be guard dogs, and considering the size of their hearts and their irrepressible joy in life, they are less likely to bite than to bark, less likely to bark than to lick a hand in greeting. In spite of their size, they think they are lap dogs, and in spite of being dogs, they think they are also human, and nearly every human they meet is judged to have the potential to be a boon companion who might, at many moment, cry, "Let's go!" and lead them on a great adventure.Dean Koontz / quote ↗
10c. 1945 ADDogs, lives are short, too short, but you know that going in. You know the pain is coming, you're going to lose a dog, and there's going to be great anguish, so you live fully in the moment with her, never fail to share her joy or delight in her innocence, because you can't support the illusion that a dog can be your lifelong companion. There's such beauty in the hard honesty of that, in accepting and giving love while always aware that it comes with an unbearable price. Maybe loving dogs is a way we do penance for all the other illusions we allow ourselves and the mistakes we make because of those illusions.Dean Koontz / quote ↗
11c. 1945 ADOne 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 / quote ↗
12c. 1945 ADAfter his dinner, the wolfhound liked to prowl the grounds, sniffing the grass to learn what creatures of field and forest had recently visited. The yard was Merlin's newspaper.Dean Koontz / quote ↗
13c. 1945 ADDogs 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 / quote ↗
14c. 1945 ADMay I tell you a wonderful truth about your dog? ... In our religion, we believe in reincarnation. We live many times, you see, always seeking to be wiser and more virtuous. If we eventually lead a blameless life, a perfect life, we leave this world and need not endure it again. Between our human lives, we may be reincarnated as other creatures. Sometimes, when someone has led a nearly perfect life but is not yet worthy of nirvana, that person is reincarnated as a very beautiful dog. When the life as the dog comes to an end, the person is reincarnated one last time as a human being, and lives a perfect life. Your dog is a person who has almost arrived at complete enlightenment and will in the next life be perfect and blameless, a very great person. You have been given stewardship of what you in your faith might call a holy soul.Dean Koontz / quote ↗
15c. 1945 ADMay I tell you a wonderful truth about your dog? ... You have been given stewardship of what you in your faith might call a holy soul.Dean Koontz / quote ↗
16c. 1945 ADListen, child—if you’re at a party with a hundred people and one of them is the devil, he’ll be the last one you’d suspect.Dean Koontz / quote ↗
17c. 1945 ADThere's no use wasting are energy being afraid of the devils, demons and things that go bump in the night... Because ultimately we'll never encounter anything more terrifying than the monster among us. Hell is where we make it.Dean Koontz / quote ↗
18c. 1945 ADWhen I function in only one mode or the other, I am denying half myself, half my potential.Dean Koontz / quote ↗
19c. 1945 ADFunny how people that don't believe in nothin' are so quick to believe every crazy story about people like us.Dean Koontz / quote ↗
20c. 1945 ADThey said there was no rest for the wicked. In fact, there was rest neither for the virtuous nor the wicked, nor for guys like Billy, who were uncommitted regarding the whole idea of virtue versus wickedness and who were just trying to do their jobs.Dean Koontz / quote ↗
21c. 1945 ADShe says what holds their marriage together is that she feels too damn sorry for him to ask for a divorce.Dean Koontz / quote ↗
22c. 1945 ADNothing supernatural has ever harmed me. My wounds and losses have all be at the hands of human beings...Dean Koontz / quote ↗
24c. 1945 ADThis time I would choose to err on the side of illogic. I had to trust intuition, and plunge as I had never plunged before, with blind faith.Dean Koontz / quote ↗
