Watchers

by Dean Koontz

the law isn’t a line engraved in marble, immovable and unchangeable through the centuries. Rather . . . the law is like a string, fixed at both ends but with a great deal of play in it—very loose, the line of the law—so you can stretch it this way or that, rearrange the arc of it so you are nearly always—short of blatant theft or cold-blooded murder—safely on the right side. That’s a daunting thing to realize but true.

“Greater love hath no man than this: that he lay down his life for his friends”—The Gospel According to Saint John.) We have within us the ability to change for the better and to find dignity as individuals rather than as drones in one mass movement or another. We have the ability to love, the need to be loved, and the willingness to put our own lives on the line to protect those we love, and it is in these aspects of ourselves that we can glimpse the face of God; and through the exercise of these qualities, we come closest to a Godlike state.

A novel can have multiple, intricately woven levels of theme and symbol, but it fails if it is not first a wonderful tale.