...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

...any talent - whether to write songs or to write novels...came with the obligation to use it to the fullest of one's ability, with a fierce commitment barely distinguishable from neurotic obsession. ... In fact...commitment to the point of obsession wasn't merely an obligation but a necessity...

— Dean Koontz

Anyway, in those years, I was happy, as to one extent or another I have always been happy. The forest was not a wilderness to me, but served instead as my private garden, comforting in spite of its vastness, and endlessly mysterious. The more familiar a place becomes, the more mysterious it becomes, as well, if you are alert to the truth of things. I have found this to be the case all of my life.

— Dean Koontz

Appearances are not reality; but they often can be a convincing alternative to it. You can control appearances most of the time, but facts are what they are. When the facts are too sharp, you can craft a cheerful version of the situation and cover the facts the way that you can cover a battered old four-slice toaster with a knitted cozy featuring images of kittens.

— Dean Koontz

Are you one of those people who use words more for the sound than for the sense of them?

— Dean Koontz

Art is the only answer to chaos and the void.

— Dean Koontz

As a writer, Bibi, you could be a doctor of the soul.

— Dean Koontz

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

A sixth sense is a miraculous thing, which in itself suggests a supernatural order. The human intellect, however, for all its power and triumphs, is largely formed by this world and is therefore corruptible.

— Dean Koontz

As we passed his table, I saw that the device that imprisoned the book was clever but wicked-looking, as though the critic was holding the work - and it's author - in bondage.

— Dean Koontz