Quicksilver

by Dean Koontz

To be bored, Quinn, you have to imagine yourself doing something else.

We distinguish ourselves by the efforts we make, by taking the initiative whatever the risks.”

I despaired that so many people, born with the knowledge of intuition and with the ability to reason, shaped their lives instead by sheer emotion. So many were swept away by boldfaced lies and swayed into currents of vicious fantasies, until they were so far from the shore of truth that they couldn’t even see it. They were everywhere in our time, controlled by those who taught them to fear what didn’t threaten them and receive with gladness those ideas and forces that would rob them of purpose, of meaning, of security—and sooner than later would take away their lives as well.