They said there was no rest for the wicked. In fact, there was rest neither for the virtuous nor the wicked, nor for guys like Billy, who were uncommitted regarding the whole idea of virtue...

The truth was stranger than the official fiction.

Give the narrative a lighter tone than you think it deserves, dear boy, lighter than you think you can bear to give it,” he instructed before I began to write, “because you won’t find the...

Maybe if everything was beautiful, nothing would be.People saw one thing, they swooned over it. They saw this other thing, they pounded it with sticks.Maybe there had to be variety for life to work. Swoon...

She never had much in this life, but with the simplest things, she made her corner of the world as beautiful as any king’s palace. We may lack riches, but the greatest fortune is what...

Billy Pilgrim had a theory about diaries.Women were more likely than men to think that their lives had sufficient meaning to require recording on a daily basis. It was not for the most part a...

Hand-to-hand combat with three hundred pounds of screaming monkey menace is not my idea of a fair fight. My idea of a fair fight is one unarmed, toothless, nearsighted old monkey versus me with a...

In this world where too many are willing to see only the light that is visible, never the Light Invisible, we have a daily darkness that is night, and we encounter another darkness from time...

She blinked, sat up, and saw Chris in the bathroom doorway. He’d just gotten out the shower. His hair was damp, and he was dressed only in his briefs. The sight of his thin, boyish...

Chronologically she is twelve but emotionally she is older, and intellectually older still.

Embrace the weather, child, and you’ll understand the balance of the world.

Sully disapproved of destruction for destruction’s sake, which seemed ever more popular in the modern world, but he always took delight in burning out or otherwise eliminating Evil when Evil just couldn’t keep its ugly...

Funny how people that don’t believe in nothin’ are so quick to believe every crazy story about people like us.

Because God is never cruel, there is a reason for all things. We must know the pain of loss; because if we never knew it, we would have no compassion for others, and we would...

We were friends, never paramours. A lover who is enigmatic will most likely prove to be a cataclysm waiting to happen. But a charming friend whose usual warmth is raveled through moments of cool inscrutability...

Given enough time, you could convince yourself that loneliness was something better, that it was solitude, the ideal condition for reflection, even a kind of freedom.Once you were thus convinced, you were foolish to open...

When I was a child, I first thought that these shades might be malevolent spirits who fostered evil in those people around whom they swarmed. I’ve since discovered that many human beings need no supernatural...

If there’s nothing to learn because we know it all, what’s the challenge? Why would the effort matter? What would be the point? – Odd Thomas

I was like a thought slipping through the fissures…

Some people like to hear themselves talk, but I like to hear myself silent.

The greatest danger, of course, was to believe that I was equal to them, because assurance can morph into arrogance that Death loves to prove unfounded.

In the war, to survive, you had to be responsible every minute of every day, unhesitatingly responsible for yourself, for your every action. You had to be responsible for your buddies, too, because survival wasn’t...

Unreason is an essential medicine as long as you do not overdose.

All these girls swooning over hunky vampires, what they really want is to give away their freedom, to be controlled and told what to do and not have to think — and never die, of...

Now take my hand and hold it tight.I will not fail you here tonight,For failing you, I fail myselfAnd place my soul upon a shelfIn Hell’s library without light.I will not fail you here tonight.

Home was not a perfect place. But it was the only home they had and they could hope to make it better.

Terror and pleasure are linked in us. We are a baldly miswired species, Martie. Terror delights us, both the experience of terror and the dealing out of it to others. We are healthier if we...

Her stare was direct and unwavering, full of confidence earned from painful experience…

Life had been hard on this girl, Jacob, but she had enough courage for an army.

Maybe magic and love, together, can achieve what magic alone cannot.

Evil travels the world in anonymity, its presence revealed only by the periodic consequences of its desires…

We don’t have time for such uncertainty because it reliably breeds indecision, and indecision is one of the mothers of failure.

Chronologically she is twelve, but emotionally she is older, and intellectually older still.

Don’t you love your mother, dear?””I guess so. A hard, sharp, thorny kind of love that might be pity more than anything else.

Of course, I don’t know everything. Considering the infinite amount of knowledge that one could acquire in a virtually innumerable array of intellectual disciplines, it’s probably more accurate to say that I don’t know anything.

People who were perfectly sane on Tuesday sometimes go nuts on Wednesday.

In this age, lies were the universal lubricant of the culture. A love of Truth and commitment to it were seldom rewarded and were often punished.

Hope lies in action

Ah, sir, that’s just mean. She’s not a Victoria’s Secret model, but she’s pretty in her way.

This isn’t a reasoned response to a configuration of stars, but the heart cannot flourish on logic alone. Unreason is an essential medicine as long as you don’t overdose

He’s a man,” Themla said.”I guess that explains it.””Hairy, Neanderthalic,” Thelma said, “perpetually half-crazed from excessive levels of testosterone, plagued by racial memories of the lost glory of mammoth-hunting expeditions – they’re all alike.

In spite of where we were, how we had gotten here and why we had come, I felt that at this moment of our lives, this place was exactly where we belonged. We were not...

Out of sight above the house, the mirror moon reflected the sun of a day not yet dawned, shining the pale light of tomorrow on the yard and on the paper birches.

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

It’s funny, ma’am, how sometimes you’re so sarcastic but it doesn’t sting.””Because of my dimples. Dimples are a get-out-of-jail-free card

Some people misunderstand evil and believe it will relent, and because their misplaced hope inspires dark hearts to dream darker dreams, they are the fathers and mothers of all wars. Evil does not relent; it...

Odd: I wish I could believe in reincarnation.Chief Porter: Not me. Once down the track is enough of a test. Pass me or fail me, Dear Lord, but don’t make me go through high school...

When you have dogs, you witness their uncomplaining acceptance of suffering, their bright desire to make the most of life in spite of the limitations of age and disease, their calm awareness of the approaching...

A fine line separates the weary recluse from the fearful hermit. Finer still is the line between hermit and bitter misanthrope.

What has been is no more. Change has come.