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Dean Koontz Quotes

Browse 36 quotes about Dean Koontz.

Dean Koontz Quotes

“Most people regard the primeval forest as a threatening domain of wilderness trails that often lead bewildered hikers to their deaths, nests of poisonous snakes, dens of sharp-toothed predators—a realm where Nature is red of tooth and claw. To Vida, however, the forest is a place of solace and succor where she is welcome because she has knowledge of—and deep respect for—its ways. In her experience, it is civilization, riven by human arrogance and greed and envy, that is, at its worst, a forest of lost souls.”

“Music—good music, great music—is itself magical, its mysterious inspiration entwined with the mystery of all things. When we are transported either by Mozart or Glenn Miller, we find ourselves in the presence of the ineffable, for which all words are so inadequate that to attempt to describe it, even with effusive praise and words of perfect beauty, is to engage in blasphemy.”

“Life is a train ride, and at the many stations along the route, people important to us debark, never to get aboard again, until by the end of our journey, we sit in a passenger car where most of the seats are empty. This truth saddens the doctor no less than it does other men and women who are given to reflection — although his sorrow is undeniably of a quality different from theirs.”

“From out of a wilderness of wind-stirred leaf shadows, as blue as the two jewels in the sockets of a jungle-wrapped stone goddess, Martie’s eyes met his. No illusions in her gaze. No superstitious surety that all would be well in this best of all possible worlds. Just a stark appreciation of her dilemma. Somehow she overcame the dread of her lethal potential. She extended her left hand to him. He held it gratefully. “Poor Dusty,” she said. “A druggie brother and a crazy wife.” “You’re not crazy.” “I’m working at it.”

“He answers that they are one and the same, Emily and Maddison, and if they are not one and the same, nevertheless he loves them both. But that is not an adequate justification for such an error as the one of which he’s being accused. On the twelfth step, with only the landing ahead, the voice within his heart asks, “Is it not a betrayal of your Emily, yet another betrayal, to mistake Maddison for her, leave her among the dead, and embrace her imposter, all in the interest of your own happiness?””

“As technology races onward and with it enlightened thinking, as hidebound society is reshaped and outdated mores are consigned to the dustbin of history, as thrilling new social norms replace the old, as previous virtues come to be seen as mere weaknesses and raw power is rightly understood to be the sole remaining virtue, much will need to be burned. Shredded and burned, torn down and hammered into dust. A shining future cannot be built on a past of ignorance and error. To build a brighter tomorrow, it’s necessary to descend into a place darker than darkness, to clean the corrupt world with blood and destruction. By the time he reaches the end of the hall, he is convinced that Megan’s paintings prove she is not woke to the better world that can be, will be. Shacket will wake her to it.”

“Having made this discovery, she never again felt exalted merely to be in the airy tops of trees, or indeed to be in the upper reaches of any place; thereafter, she understood that for every creature living under a rock or crawling through the mud, there is another equally squirmy thing that flourishes in high realms, because although this is a wondrous world, it is fallen.”

“Nature was a green battlefield where the weak were forever preyed on by the strong. Nature did not care, nor did the earth, which for all its beauty was nonetheless a hard place, indifferent to its creatures. It was mind that mattered, mind that cared, mind that loved, the best works of the mind that changed this hard world for the better. Mind—and the heart—had bonded people and dogs for tens of thousands of years. They had formed an alliance for survival and a covenant of affection against the darkness of the world.”

“Progress was real progress only when it evolved naturally and thoughtfully from the history of human experience and accumulated wisdom. When it was imposed in contempt for that experience and wisdom, then progress was in fact radical destruction. ...Carson began to understand that what he sought was an escape from the hubris of humanity, from the endless discontent of those who believed in one utopia or another in spite of the fact that history showed utopian thinking to lead inevitably to disaster and often to mass murder on an industrial scale. But of course there could be no escape from the overweening pride and arrogance of the species. You could withdraw, remake your life with a small circle of friends who didn’t wish to silence and punish their fellow countrymen with whom they disagreed, who knew the grievous threat to peace that arose from contempt for others, from an inflated self-esteem that became vainglory. But there was no town remote enough, no fortress walls high enough to protect you from mad ideas with mass appeal.”

“Two species on this planet had been bonded for many thousands of years. Maybe more than a hundred thousand. Dogs and people. Dogs had been at the side of human beings for millennia before horses or cats. They had hunted together when hunting had been essential for survival. They had protected each other from all threats in a primitive world where nature was even crueler than it was now. Of all the creatures on Earth, only people and dogs engaged joyfully in play all the days of their lives. In the relationship between humanity and dogs, some mutual destiny existed that had not yet been fulfilled.”

“What if something happens to me out here and I can’t get home again?” Susan worried. “I’ll take care of you,” Martie promised, although in light of her own peculiar state of mind, the promise might prove empty. “But what if something happens to you?” “Nothing is going to happen to me,” Martie vowed as she switched on the windshield wipers. “Something can happen to anybody. Look at what happened to me.”

“Perhaps her sudden inexplicable anxiety had been spawned by her mother’s whining about Dusty’s supposed paucity of ambition and about his lack of what Sabrina deemed an adequate education. Martie was afraid that her mother’s venom would eventually poison her marriage. Against her will, she might start to see Dusty through her mother’s mercilessly critical eyes. Or maybe Dusty would begin to resent Martie for the low esteem in which Sabrina held him. In fact, Dusty was the wisest man Martie had ever known. The engine between his ears was even more finely tuned than her father’s had been, and Smilin’ Bob had been immeasurably smarter than his nickname implied. As for ambition… Well, she would rather have a kind husband than an ambitious one, and you’d find more kindness in Dusty than you’d find greed in Vegas.”