Strange Highways and Other Stories Quotes

“whose taxes and labors and sacrifices paved the way for those advancements of civilization for which the politicians stole the credit.”
― Dean Koontz, Strange Highways and Other Stories

“As our three children reached adolescence, they took jobs with us as waiters. It was a family affair, and every year we became more prosperous, but it was never easy. America does not promise easy wealth, only opportunity. We seized the machine of opportunity and lubricated it with oceans of perspiration, and by the time we bought the house in Laguna Beach, we were able to pay cash. Jokingly, we gave the house a name: Casa Sudor – House of Sweat.
It was a huge home. And beautiful.”
― Dean Koontz, Strange Highways and Other Stories

“Memory can be a curse and a guarantee against happiness. On the other hand, forgetfulness can be a blessing, and it can even be mistaken for that most admirable of all virtues – forgiveness.”
― Dean Koontz, Strange Highways and Other Stories

“They lived short lives, oddly unaware of their potential for immortality. Something had happened during the species’ evolution to create a mind-body barrier that prevented them from consciously controlling their own physical being.
Strange.”
― Dean Koontz, Strange Highways and Other Stories

“I had thought that religious mania was the worst horror of all, but now I had found one that was worse: the horror of an atheist who, unable to believe in God, is suddenly also unable to believe in the value of human struggle and courage, and is therefore unable to find meaning in anything whatsoever, neither in beauty nor in pleasure, nor in the smallest act of kindness.”
― Dean Koontz, Strange Highways and Other Stories

“The human condition is unspeakably sad. Think of it: their bodies are fragile; their lives are brief, each like the sputtering decline of a short candle; measured against the age of the earth itself, their deepest relationships with friends and family are of the most transitory nature, mere incandescent flashes of love and kindness that do nothing to light the great, endless, dark, flowing river of time. Yet they seldom surrender to the cruelty of their condition, seldom lose faith in themselves. Their hopes are rarely fulfilled, but they go on anyway, struggling against the darkness. Their determined striving in the face of their mortality is the very definition of courage, the essence of nobility.”
― Dean Koontz, Strange Highways and Other Stories

“If you start wishing things were different from what they are, the next step is depression, then inactivity, and finally vegetation. No matter what the state of the world, you have got to move.”
― Dean Koontz, Strange Highways and Other Stories

“While resistance to evil was essential, there could be no hope for the world without love.”
― Dean Koontz, Strange Highways and Other Stories

“how can there be any redemption if I knowingly turn my back on evil and walk away from it?”
― Dean Koontz, Strange Highways and Other Stories

“If you start wishing things were different from what they are, the next step is depression, then inactivity, and finally vegetation. No matter what the state of the world, you have got to move. Move.”
― Dean Koontz, Strange Highways and Other Stories

“It was the ordinary citizen who always made the world safe for peace by fighting the current war to the bitter end, always the ordinary citizen whose taxes and labors and sacrifices paved the way for those advancements of civilization for which the politicians stole the credit.”
― Dean Koontz, Strange Highways and Other Stories