The collection / 379 fragments

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Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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01c. 1945 AD

No matter how close we are to another person, few human relationships are as free from strife, disagreement, and frustration as is the relationship you have with a good dog. Few human beings give of themselves to another as a dog gives of itself. I also suspect that we cherish dogs because their unblemished souls make us wish - consciously or unconsciously - that we were as innocent as they are, and make us yearn for a place where innocence is universal and where the meanness, the betrayals, and the cruelties of this world are unknown.

Dean Koontz / quote

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02c. 1945 AD

When we make our own misery we sometimes cling to it even when we want so bad to change, because misery is something we know. The misery is comfortable.

Dean Koontz / quote

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03c. 1945 AD

Change isn't easy. Changing the way you live means changing the way you think, means changing what you believe about life. That's hard.

Dean Koontz / quote

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04c. 1945 AD

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.

Dean Koontz / quote

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05c. 1945 AD

The truth was stranger than the official fiction.

Dean Koontz / quote

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06c. 1945 AD

In this age, lies were the universal lubricant of the culture. A love of Truth and commitment to it were seldom rewarded and were often punished.

Dean Koontz / quote

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07c. 1945 AD

What doesn't quicken dies. That's an indisputable truth of life.

Dean Koontz / quote

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08c. 1945 AD

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

Dean Koontz / quote

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09c. 1945 AD

Truth is always stranger than fiction. We craft fiction to match our sense of how things ought to be, but truth cannot be crafted. Truth is, and truth has a way of astonishing us to our knees. Reminding us, that the universe does not exist to fulfill our expectations. Because we are imperfect beings who are self-blinded to the truth of the world’s stunning complexity, we shave reality to paper thin theories and ideologies that we can easily grasp – and we call them truths. But the truth of a sea in all it’s immensity cannot be embodied in one tidewashed pebble.

Dean Koontz / quote

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10c. 1945 AD

Language can't describe reality. Literature has no stable reference, no real meaning. Each reader's interpretation is equally valid, more important than the author's intention. In fact, nothing in life has meaning. Reality is subjective. Values and truths are subjective. Life itself is a kind of illusion. Blah, blah, blah, let's have another scotch.

Dean Koontz / quote

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11c. 1945 AD

People hide truths about themselves from themselves. Such self-deception is a coping mechanism, and to one extent or another, most people begin deceiving themselves when they're children.

Dean Koontz / quote

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12c. 1945 AD

Because God is never cruel, there is a reason for all things. We must know the pain of loss; because if we never knew it, we would have no compassion for others, and we would become monsters of self-regard, creatures of unalloyed self-interest. The terrible pain of loss teaches humility to our prideful kind, has the power to soften uncaring hearts, to make a better person of a good one.

Dean Koontz / quote

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13c. 1945 AD

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.

Dean Koontz / quote

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14c. 1945 AD

Of course, in the process, you must never do harm to others in any serious way, or you'll cease to amuse Him. Then payment comes due for promises you didn't keep.

Dean Koontz / quote

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15c. 1945 AD

My parents didn't raise me to ask God for blessings or benefits. For guidance, yes. For the strength to do the right thing, yes. Not for a winning lottery number, not for love or health, or happiness. Prayer is not a gimme list; God isn't Santa Claus.

Dean Koontz / quote

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16c. 1945 AD

For the likes of you, the path to happiness is one mean son of a bitch of a path.

Dean Koontz / quote

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17c. 1945 AD

No one can grant you happiness. Happiness is a choice we all have the power to make.

Dean Koontz / quote

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18c. 1945 AD

Home was not a perfect place. But it was the only home they had and they could hope to make it better.

Dean Koontz / quote

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19c. 1945 AD

Imagine that you are more than nothing. Evil made you, but you are no more evil than a child unborn. If you want, if you seek, if you hope, who is to say that your hope might not be answered?

Dean Koontz / quote

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20c. 1945 AD

What will happen will happen. There is time for miracles until there is no more time, but time has no end.

Dean Koontz / quote

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21c. 1945 AD

For a long time things were so bad. Very bad. Dark even when there was light.The only thing that kept the dark back was the Forever Shiny Thing that was her secret...It is a word...the word hangs on a silver chain. The word is HOPE.

Dean Koontz / quote

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22c. 1945 AD

Hope wasn't a cottage industry; it was neither a product that she could manufacture like needlepoint samplers nor a substance she could secrete, in her cautious solitude, like a maple tree producing the essence of syrup. Hope was to be found in other people, by reaching out, by taking risks, by opening her fortress heart.

Dean Koontz / quote

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23c. 1945 AD

When you have dogs, you witness their uncomplaining acceptance of suffering, their bright desire to make the most of life in spite of the limitations of age and disease, their calm awareness of the approaching end when their final hours come. They accept death with a grace that I hope I will one day be brave enough to muster.

Dean Koontz / quote

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24c. 1945 AD

A man begins dying at the moment of his birth. Most People live in denial of Death's patient courtship until, late in life and deep in sickness, they become aware of him sitting bedside.

Dean Koontz / quote

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