1
I knew that suffering can purify, that it's a kind of fire that can be worth enduring, but there were degrees of it to which I chose not to subject myself.Dean Koontz
2
When I was no longer of the world, I would miss its extravagant beauty. I would miss the complex and charming layers of subterfuge by which the truth of the world's mysteries were withheld from us even as we were tantalized and enchanted by them. I would miss the kindness of good people who were compassionate when so many were pitiless, who made their way through so much corruption without being corrupted themselves, who eschewed envy in a world of envy, who eschewed greed in a world of greed, who valued truth and could not be drowned in a sea of lies, for they shone and, by the light they cast, they warmed me all my life.Dean Koontz
3
Such grief might be to them quite delicious, a delicacy.Dean Koontz
4
Small-town boy meets big-time evil.Dean Koontz
5
That I had come full circle shouldn't have surprised me, for we are born into time only to be born out of it, after living through the cycles of the seasons, under stars that turn because the world turns, born into ignorance and acquiring knowledge that ultimately reveals to us our enduring ignorance: The circle is the essential pattern of our existence.Dean Koontz
6
As I turned to leave the tent, she said, "Don't worry. Your own mother wouldn't know you." I said, "She never has.Dean Koontz
7
...on a subconscious level we're aware that time isn't enduring, that it is not a required condition of our existence, that there comes a point when we will have no need of it.Dean Koontz
8
Free will, " she agreed, "our greatest gift, the thing that makes life worth living, in spite of all the anguish it brings.Dean Koontz
9
Her direct stare probed, as if the story of my life were written in my eyes in a few succinct lines that she could read.Dean Koontz
10
...and where the Ferris wheel carried its passengers high and brought them low and raised them high and brought them low again, as if it were not merely a carnival ride but also a metaphor for the basic pattern of human experience.Dean Koontz
11
...Here lie your hopes and dreams, shattered and swept aside...Dean Koontz
12
I needed a moment to understand that I'd been dreaming, that I had come awake, and another moment to remember where I had gone to bed.Dean Koontz