The House at the End of the World

by Dean Koontz

She reads aloud from Eliot—“‘I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing’”—and then she closes the book and sets it aside.

My Avi used to say, ‘Always keep moving. The Fates are master sharpshooters, and the easy target is the one who’s standing still.’ By ‘keep moving,’ he also meant keep telling the truth, keep doing what’s right, keep believing what you do matters, because when you give up on the truth, you become one of them.”

Avi always said that speaking the devil’s name doesn’t summon him, but pretending there is no devil will ensure that proudest of demons will put in an appearance to mock you.