Top 500 Dean Koontz Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Stay low, stay quiet, keep it simple, don’t expect too much, enjoy what you have.”

— Dean Koontz

Featured in: Short Positive Quotes, Enjoy Life Quotes

2. “In this world only the paranoid survive.”

— Dean Koontz

3. “In the end, it’s all about perseverance.”

— Dean Koontz

4. “Intuition is seeing with the soul.”

— Dean Koontz

Featured in: Intuition Quotes

5. “Change isn’t easy. Changing the way you live means changing the way you think, means changing what you believe about life. That’s hard.”

— Dean Koontz

6. “I’m alive but I have no life. I’m alive but also dead. I’m dead and alive.”

— Dean Koontz

7. “When tempest tossed, embrace chaos.”

— Dean Koontz

8. “Where there is cake, there is hope. And there is always cake.”

— Dean Koontz

9. “Ignorance isn’t bliss, but sometimes ignorance makes it possible for us to sleep at night.”

— Dean Koontz

10. “No one can tell you what your heart should feel.”

— Dean Koontz

11. “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 Koontz

12. “Some people think only intellect counts: knowing how to solve problems, knowing how to get by, knowing how to identify an advantage and seize it. But the functions of intellect are insufficient without courage, love, friendship, compassion, and empathy.”

— Dean Koontz

13. “It will all be better in the end and if it is not better then it must not be the end yet.”

— Dean Koontz

14. “I am my own worst enemy. This, more than any other trait, proves my fundamental humanity.”

— Dean Koontz

15. “On the Road that I have taken, one day walking I awaken, amazed to see where I’ve come, where I’m going, where I’m from.”

— Dean Koontz

16. “The world howls for social justice, but when it comes to social responsibility, you sometimes cant even hear crickets chirping.”

— Dean Koontz

17. “She was fascinated with words. To her, words were things of beauty, each like a magical powder or potion that could be combined with other words to create powerful spells.”

— Dean Koontz

Featured in: Reading Quotes

18. “When we don’t allow ourselves to hope, we don’t allow ourselves to have purpose. Without purpose, without meaning, life is dark. We’ve no light within, and we’re just living to die.”

— Dean Koontz

19. “Life is a train ride, and at the many stations along the route, people important to us debark, never to get aboard again, until by the end of the journey, we sit in a passenger car where most of the seats are empty.”

— Dean Koontz

20. “Being alone can be good. It’s easy to find peace alone. But sometimes, being alone is a king of death.”

— Dean Koontz

21. “One man’s idea of perfect order is another man’s chaos.”

— Dean Koontz

22. “Humanity was drawn to turmoil and self-destruction as inevitably as the earth was drawn to complete its annual revolution of the sun.”

— Dean Koontz

23. “Humanity is a parade of fools, and I am at the front of it, twirling a baton.”

— Dean Koontz

24. “The world is full of broken people. Splints, casts, miracle drugs, and time can’t mend fractured hearts, wounded hearts, wounded minds, torn spirits.”

— Dean Koontz

25. “I am basically a pretty good autodidact. I can teach myself things.”

— Dean Koontz

26. “Carpe Deim, Carpe Noctem.”

— Dean Koontz

27. “Holy men tell us life is a mystery. They embrace that concept happily. But some mysteries bite and bark and come to get you in the dark.”

— Dean Koontz

28. “Hope is the destination that we seek. Love is the road that leads to hope. Courage is the motor that drives us. We travel out of darkness into faith.”

— Dean Koontz

Featured in: Destination Quotes

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

— Dean Koontz

30. “In self-defense and in defense of the innocent, cowardice is the only sin.”

— Dean Koontz

31. “Cowards shrink from toil and peril, Vulgar souls attempt and fail; Men of mettle, nothing daunted, Persevere till they prevail.”

— Dean Koontz

32. “Time doesn’t, as advertised, heal all wounds. Although the wrenching immediacy of grief eventually passed, the settled sorrow that replaced it might in its own way be even more intense.”

— Dean Koontz

33. “Evil is no faceless stranger, living in a distant neighborhood. Evil has a wholesome, hometown face, with merry eyes and an open smile. Evil walks among us, wearing a mask which looks like all our faces.”

— Dean Koontz

34. “Sometimes there is no darker place than our thoughts, the moonless midnight of the mind.”

— Dean Koontz

35. “Maybe the devil in human beings isn’t the reflection of the devil, perhaps the devil is only a reflection of the savagery and brutality of our kind. Maybe what we’ve done is create the devil in our own image.”

— Dean Koontz

36. “None of us can ever save himself; we are the instruments of one another’s salvation, and only by the hope that we give to others do we lift ourselves out of the darkness into light.”

— Dean Koontz

37. “In a book, even the real bastards can’t hurt you. And you can never loose a friend you make in a book. When you get to a sad part, no one’s there to see you cry. Or wonder why you don’t cry when you should.”

— Dean Koontz

38. “In this uncertain space between birth and death, especially here at the end of the world in Moonlight Bay, we need hope as surely as we need food and water, love and friendship.”

— Dean Koontz

39. “Dogs are one of those things that make you happy and make you wonder.”

— Dean Koontz

40. “Life without meaning cannot be borne. We find a mission to which we’re sworn -or answer the call of Death’s dark horn. Without a gleaning of purpose in life, we have no vision, we live in strife, -or let blood fall on a suicide knife.”

— Dean Koontz

41. “The functions of intellect are insufficient without courage, love, friendship, compassion and empathy.”

— Dean Koontz

42. “I think the world is full of evil people. I think in some ways we’re in more danger now than before.”

— Dean Koontz

43. “There’s evil in the world, all right. Being aware of it makes you a realist, not a paranoid.”

— Dean Koontz

44. “We are all the walking wounded in a world that is a war zone. Everything we love will be taken from us, everything, last of all life itself. Yet everywhere I look, I find great beauty in this battlefield, and grace and the promise of joy.”

— Dean Koontz

45. “One of the greatest sorrows of human existence is that some people aren’t happy merely to be alive but find their happiness only in the misery of others.”

— Dean Koontz

46. “Life, Stormy says, is not about how fast you run or even with what degree of grace. It’s about perseverance, about staying on your feet and slogging forward no matter what.”

— Dean Koontz

47. “Marriage is an expression of love and respect and trust and faith in the future, but the union of husband and wife is also an alliance against the challenges and tragedies of life, a promise that with me in your corner, you will never stand alone.”

— Dean Koontz

48. “Only the human spirit can act with volition and consciously change itself; it is the only thing in all creation that is not entirely at the mercy of forces outside itself.”

— Dean Koontz

49. “Anger is a violent emotion, vindictive, and as dangerous to he who is driven by it as to anyone on whom it is turned.”

— Dean Koontz

50. “You amaze me and scare me. I can’t figure where you came from or how you got to be what you are, but you couldn’t have come where you’re more needed.”

— Dean Koontz