Odd Hours Quotes

“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

“Loss is the hardest thing, I said. But it's also the teacher that's the most difficult to ignore.”
― Dean Koontz, Odd Hours

“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 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

“It's only life. We all get through it. Not all of us complete the journey in the same condition. Along the way, some lose their legs or eyes in acidents or altercations, while others skate through the years with nothing worse to worry about than an occassional bad-hair day.
I still possessed both legs and both eyes, and even my hair looked all right when I rose that Wednesday morning in late January. If I returned to bed sixteen hours later, having lost all my hair but nothing else, I would consider the day a triumph. Even minus a few teeth, I'd call it a triumph.”
― Dean Koontz, Odd Hours

“Evil men often easy to mislead, because they have spent so long deceiving that they no longer recognise the truth and mistake deseption for it.”
― Dean Koontz, Odd Hours

“Of all the spirits I have seen, only Elvis and Mr. Sinatra are able to manifest in the garments of their choice. Others haunt me always in whatever they were wearing when they died.

This is one reason I will never attend a costume party dressed as the traditional symbol of the New Year, in nothing buy a diaper and a top hat. Welcomed into either Hell or Heaven, I do not want to cross the threshold to the sound of demonic or angelic laughter. ~Odd Thomas”
― Dean Koontz, Odd Hours

“Dogs know we need to give affection as much as they need to receive it. They were the first therapists; they've been in practice for thousands of years.”
― Dean Koontz, Odd Hours

“In a clutch or a corner, I tend to make a weapon out of what is near at hand. That can be anything from a crowbar to a cat, though if I had a choice, I would prefer an angry cat, which I have found to be more effective than a crowbar.

Although weaponless, I left the house by the back door, with two chocolate-pumpkin cookies. It's a tough world out there, and a man has to armor himself against it however he can. ~Odd Thomas”
― Dean Koontz, Odd Hours

“Life had not taught me to distrust ministers, but it had taught me to trust no one more than dogs.”
― Dean Koontz, Odd Hours

“It's only life. We all get through it.”
― Dean Koontz, Odd Hours

“I need those nukes, the chief said. I need them, I need them right now.

I don't want to be an enabler, sir. I'd rather get you into a twelve step program to help you break this addiction.”
― Dean Koontz, Odd Hours

“No one can genuinely love the world, which is too large to love entire. To love all the world at once is...dangerous self-delusion. Loving the world is like loving the idea of love, which is perilous because, feeling virtuous about this grand affection, you are freed from the struggles and the duties that come with loving people as individuals, with loving one place-home-above all others.

I embrace the world on a scale that allows genuine love-the small places like a town, a neighborhood, a street-and I love life, because of what the beauty of this world and of this life portend.”
― Dean Koontz, Odd Hours

“Good fences make good neighbors, and these were apparently good enough that they had not felt the need for razor wire at the top. I crested the fence, threw myself into the yard beyond, fell, rolled to my feet, and ran with the expectation of being garroted by a taut clothesline.

I heard panting, looked down, and saw a gold retriever running at my side, ears flapping. The dog glanced up at me tongue rolling, grinning, as though jazzed by the prospect of an unscheduled play session.”
― Dean Koontz, Odd Hours

“All this is just a place, she said. And sometimes such a lonely one.”
― Dean Koontz, Odd Hours

“Malevolence and paranoia cohabit in a twisted mind. Bad men trust no one because they know the treachery of which they themselves are capable.

Bad men...destroy one another, although...they prefer those who are innocent and as pure as this world allows them to be. They feed on violence, but they feast on the despoiling of what is good.”
― Dean Koontz, Odd Hours

“...I stood there, inexpressibly grateful that my life, for all its terrors, is so filled with moments of grace.”
― Dean Koontz, Odd Hours

“Half a century goes by in what seems like a year. Don't waste an hour in boredom, son, or wishing for tomorrow.”
― Dean Koontz, Odd Hours

“I am no good alone. I need bonds, vows real if unspoken, shared laughter, and people who depend on me as I depend on them.”
― Dean Koontz, Odd Hours

“If you can spend enough time playing other people, you don't have to think too much about your own character motivations.”
― Dean Koontz, Odd Hours

“If allowed to be, the heart is self-policing, and a reasonable measure of guilt guards against corruption.”
― Dean Koontz, Odd Hours

“If evil geniuses are so rare, why do so many bad people get away with so many crimes against their fellow citizens, and, when they become leaders of nations, against humanity?”
― Dean Koontz, Odd Hours

“...wonder admits to the existence of mystery...recognition of mystery allows the possibility of Truth.”
― Dean Koontz, Odd Hours

“He had no credit cards. This made him suspicious in a country that not only looked to the future but lived on the earnings from it.”
― Dean Koontz, Odd Hours

“Shakespeare again. Once you let him into your head, he takes up tenancy and will not leave.”
― Dean Koontz, Odd Hours

“It is also essential that good men and women not be educated and propagandized into believing that real evil is a myth and that all malevolent behavior is merely the result of a broken family's or a failed society's shortcomings, amenable to cure by counseling and by the application of new economic theory.”
― Dean Koontz, Odd Hours

“Maybe they traveled into darkness eternal without protest because they lacked the imagination to envision anything else.”
― Dean Koontz, Odd Hours

“As a teenager, I always intended to do my homework. But when the supplicant dead come to you for justice and you also have occasional prophetic dreams, life tends to interfere with your studies.”
― Dean Koontz, Odd Hours

“A part of me knew... from the moment I saw her;
her death would have been one wound too many that day.”
― Dean Koontz, Odd Hours

“To protect the innocent, to avoid being one of Burke's good men who do nothing, you have to accept permanent scars that cincture the heart and traumas of the mind that occasionally reopen to weep again.”
― Dean Koontz, Odd Hours

“By doing, I learn what to do. By going, I learn where to go. One day, by dying, I'll learn how to die, and leave the world and hope to land in light.”
― Dean Koontz, Odd Hours