Devoted

by Dean Koontz

During the past two years, he’d penetrated highly protected computer systems, in which he had planted rootkits that allowed him to swim through their networks without their security becoming aware that a secret fish explored the data depths. His explorations had also led him into strange places on the Dark Web.

Ultimately, failure can be the father of success if one learns from the errors made.

Only now does he realize that the worst of all miseries to afflict the human heart is loneliness.

Mother Nature wasn’t really motherly. Mom said nature was more like a bipolar aunt who treated you kindly most of the time but, now and then, could be a real witch, conjuring killer storms and vicious animals, like big toothy mountain lions that, if given a menu, would always order tender children.

Love was the best thing when you had it, and the most terrible thing when it was taken from you.

Stories were the greatest blessing of intelligence. They were food for the soul. They were medicine.

You could live a thousand lives through stories—and learn to shape your own life into a story of the best kind.

Kipp knew—and Woody Bookman knew but now came to understand in mind and heart and soul—that simplicity in human affairs was the way of truth, and complexity the way of deceit.

That envy and coveting were poisons from which arose the lust for power and all evil. That love was the antidote to envy and coveting. That truth was essential for the flourishing of love. That love was essential to maintain innocence. That peace of mind and perfect happiness could be achieved only through the truth of innocence and the simplicity of truth.

That understanding ensured humility. Humility was the foundation for all lasting achievements.

one buried under more shell corporations and sedimentary

layers of false data than the geological strata that overlaid Jurassic-era fossils.

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.