C.P. Cabaniss > C.P.'s Quotes

“If God is an author and the universe is the biggest novel ever written, I may feel as if I'm the lead character in the story, but like every man and woman on Earth, I am a suporting player in one of billions of subplots. You know what happens to supporting players. Too often they are killed off in chapter 3, or in chapter 10, or in chapter 35. A supporting player always has to be looking over his shoulder.”
― Dean Koontz, Life Expectancy

“Every life is complicated, every mind a kingdom of unmapped mysteries.”
― Dean Koontz, Forever Odd

“No one can grant you happiness. Happiness is a choice we all have the power to make.”
― Dean Koontz, Life Expectancy

“The things we worry about the most are never the things that bite us. The sharpest teeth always take their nip of us when we are looking the other way.”
― Dean Koontz, Forever Odd

“We yearn for tomorrow and the progress that it represents. But yesterday was once tomorrow, and where was progress in it? Or we yearn for yesterday, for what was or what might have been. But as we are yearning, the present is becoming the past, so the past is nothing but our yearning for second chances.”
― Dean Koontz, Brother Odd

“Evil itself may be relentless. I will grant you that, but love is relentless too. Friendship is a relentless force. Family is a relentless force. Faith is relentless force. The human spirit is relentless, and the human heart outlasts - and can defeat - even the most relentless force of all, which is time.”
― Dean Koontz, Relentless

“In the real world
as in dreams
nothing is quite
what it seems.
-The Book of Counted Sorrows”
― Dean Koontz

“Mama, Mama, help me get home
I'm out in the woods, I am out on my own.
I found me a werewolf, a nasty old mutt
It showed me its teeth and went straight for my gut.

Mama, Mama, help me get home
I'm out in the woods, I am out on my own.
I was stopped by a vampire, a rotting old wreck
It showed me its teeth and went straight for my neck.

Mama, Mama, put me to bed
I won't make it home, I'm already half-dead.
I met an Invalid, and fell for his art
He showed me his smile, and went straight for my heart.

-From "A Child's Walk Home," Nursery Rhymes and Folk Tales”
― Lauren Oliver, Delirium

“A line is a fuse
that's lit.
The line smolders,
the rhyme explodes—
and by a stanza
a city
is blown to bits.”
― Vladimir Mayakovsky

“No one's life should be rooted in fear. We are born for wonder, for joy, for hope, for love, to marvel at the mystery of existence, to be ravished by the beauty of the world, to seek truth and meaning, to acquire wisdom, and by our treatment of others to brighten the corner where we are.”
― Dean R. Koontz, Life Expectancy

“From time to time, I do consider that I might be mad. Like any self-respecting lunatic, however, I am always quick to dismiss any doubts about my sanity.”
― Dean Koontz, Odd Thomas

“Mortals. I envy you. You think you can change things. Stop the universe. Undo what was done long before you came along. You are such beautiful creatures.”
― Kami Garcia, Beautiful Creatures

“Are you insinuatin' that my daughter is a liar?"
"Oh, no, not at all. I'm saying your daughter is a liar. Surely you can appreciate the difference.”
― Kami Garcia, Beautiful Creatures

“Well? Is it true? Did she?"
"Did she what?"
"You know. Fall outta the crazy tree and hit every branch on the way down?”
― Kami Garcia, Beautiful Creatures

“By now, it is probably very late at night, and you have stayed up to read this book when you should have gone to sleep. If this is the case, then I commend you for falling into my trap. It is a writer's greatest pleasure to hear that someone was kept up until the unholy hours of the morning reading one of his books. It goes back to authors being terrible people who delight in the suffering of others. Plus, we get a kickback from the caffeine industry...”
― Brandon Sanderson, Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians

“I try to avoid having thoughts. They lead to other thoughts, and—if you’re not careful—those lead to actions. Actions make you tired. I have this on rather good authority from someone who once read it in a book.”
― Brandon Sanderson

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings

“It's easy to believe in something when you win all the time...The losses are what define a man's faith.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Well of Ascension

“My behavior is nonetheless, deplorable. Unfortunately, I'm quite prone to such bouts of deplorability--take for instance, my fondness for reading books at the dinner table.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Mistborn: The Final Empire

“Belief isn't simply a thing for fair times and bright days...What is belief - what is faith - if you don't continue in it after failure?...Anyone can believe in someone, or something that always succeeds...But failure...ah, now, that is hard to believe in, certainly and truly. Difficult enough to have value. Sometimes we just have to wait long enough...then we find out why exactly it was that we kept believing...There's always another secret.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Mistborn: The Final Empire

“You're a very difficult person to manipulate, you know."
"Nonsense," he said. "You just have to promise me that I won't have to do a thing, and then I'll do anything you want."
"Anything?"
"Anything that doesn't require doing anything."
"That's nothing, then."
"Is it?"
"Yes."
"Well, that's something.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Warbreaker

“Personally, I say, "Out of the frying pan and into the deadly pit filled with sharks who are wielding chainsaws with killer kittens stapled to them." However, that one's having a rough time catching on.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Alcatraz Versus the Scrivener's Bones

“Our belief is often strongest when it should be weakest. That is the nature of hope.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Mistborn: The Final Empire

“Every man is a hero of his own story.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Warbreaker

“Tell me. Why would you consider me insane, but the man who can't hold a job, who cheats on his wife, who can't keep his temper in check? You call him sane? ... Plenty of sane people can't manage to keep it all under control. Their mental state--stress, anxiety, frustration--gets in the way of their ability to be happy. Compared to them, I think I'm downright stable.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Legion

“Lightsong met the man's eyes, then smiled broadly, looking down at the God King. "My life to yours," Lifesong said. "My breath become yours.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Warbreaker

“Grief can destroy you --or focus you. You can decide a relationship was all for nothing if it had to end in death, and you alone. OR you can realize that every moment of it had more meaning than you dared to recognize at the time, so much meaning it scared you, so you just lived, just took for granted the love and laughter of each day, and didn't allow yourself to consider the sacredness of it. But when it's over and you're alone, you begin to see that it wasn't just a movie and a dinner together, not just watching sunsets together, not just scrubbing a floor or washing dishes together or worrying over a high electric bill. It was everything, it was the why of life, every event and precious moment of it. The answer to the mystery of existence is the love you shared sometimes so imperfectly, and when the loss wakes you to the deeper beauty of it, to the sanctity of it, you can't get off your knees for a long time, you're driven to your knees not by the weight of the loss but by gratitude for what preceded the loss. And the ache is always there, but one day not the emptiness, because to nurture the emptiness, to take solace in it, is to disrespect the gift of life.”
― Dean Koontz, Odd Hours

“Where there is cake, there is hope. And there is always cake.”
― Dean Koontz, Life Expectancy

“...I felt fear enter the halls of my mind, but I didn't give it the keys to every room.”
― Dean Koontz, Life Expectancy