Quicksilver

by Dean Koontz

But the optimist, unlike the pessimist, believes that life has meaning, that there is something to learn from every adversity, and even that the absurdity of such an excess of misfortune will likely seem at least somewhat amusing after enough time has passed. That is why, years after they have lost everything, optimists are frequently richer and happier than ever, while pessimists often had nothing to lose in the first place.

“you can either do the wrong thing and let a loss like that destroy you, or you can do the right thing and be properly grateful for all that came before the loss. Grief should drive you to your knees, but if you stay there forever, you’re saying you know better than God how the world should work. And you don’t.”

college boys, the kind who had gone to the

looking for. We’re afraid it might be Bridget.”

It is human nature to know we die and still to disbelieve it; otherwise, we might not carry on.

Throughout history, whole societies that seemed stable have imploded when self-righteous narcissists, enflamed by insane ideologies, so threatened the larger population of the sane that soon everyone feared to stand against the violence, whereupon madness accelerated. No one seemed to remember the lessons of history—or cared to learn them.

the human pageant is both tragic and comic.

They say that ignorance is bliss. I think ignorance is the mother of extreme behavior, ensuring either a colorless and tedious life or one of passionate commitment to foolishness of one kind or another.

“A lot of people these days are the opposite of what they say they are, and a lot of them probably don’t even realize it. They’re opposed to racism even as they act like racists. They’re opposed to fascism, even as they act like fascists. The world’s gone weird.”

I love this country. This is the greatest country in the world, as long as it will be allowed to last.

Well. Even I, for all my limitations, discerned two lessons from Hakeem’s heartfelt response. First, it is a mistake to presume to know anyone’s internal emotional landscape based on what external emotional signals they seem to be sending. Second, you can apologize for something you have done, but only a fool apologizes for things that other people have done, for he has no authority to do that.

“It’s a package deal,” she said. “Free will and freedom itself require the problem of evil. People who are truly grown up, not just in years but also in their minds and hearts, understand that freedom can’t exist without the choice between right and wrong. To be free, we accept the problem of evil—and then resist it.”