Dean Koontz Quotes

Everyone has a conflict inside of them - the conflict between what you should do and what you want to do.

Just because I don't do bad things doesn't mean I don't have bad thoughts.

My whole life, I've been a Temptation.

The battle of good and evil reduced to a fat woman standing in front of a chocolate shop, saying, Will I? Won’t I? in pitiful indecision.

Urges ... every man has urges. But the true measure of man is to admit them, to learn to control them. The Shield used to refer to themselves as the most dominant force in our universe. But that ain't the way I remember it. They fell victim to the faults of men. Their lust and greed and valor for glory, it led them right down in the pit, where they belong. Tonight, they'll burn for it. For I am no man. I am reborn. Our bond can never be broken, and our urges can never be satisfied.

The foes from whom we pray to be delivered are our own passions, appetites, and follies; and against these there is always need that we should war.

Protect me from what I want.

What other dungeon is so dark as one's own heart! What jailer so inexorable as one's self!

Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up.

It is a man's own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways.

We may not have demon fathers dangling offers of infernal power before us, but everyone understands what it means to struggle with temptation or resist the urge to give in to our baser natures.

My fire is my gift and my curse. I harness it 95% of the time, but the 5% I don't, it works against me.

Right is what you should do, wrong is what you really want to do.

The sin that now rises to memory as your bosom sin, let this first of all be withstood and mastered. Oppose it instantly by a detestation of it, by a firm will to conquer it, by reflection, by reason, and by prayer.

A man may quarrel with himself alone; that is, by controverting his better instincts and knowledge when brought face to face with temptation.

One of my themes is that there is good and evil in everyone. I was not out to make these guys heroes. I really don't believe in heroes. The best of people have a dark side and it's a constant struggle for the better side to survive and to thrive.

Maybe we all have a dark place inside of us, a place where dark thoughts and darker dreams live, but it doesn't have to become who we are.

Nothing should be permanent except struggle with the dark side within ourselves.

Psychoanalytic doctrine reveals the pig in man, a pig saddled with a conscience; the disastrous result is that the pig is uncomfortable beneath that pious rider, and the rider fares no better in the situation, since his endeavor is not only to tame the pig, but also to render it invisible.

Fight with yourself when you paint, not with the model. A student is one who struggles with himself for order.

My temptations have been my Masters of Divinity.

Everyone fears and courts his own demon.

No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good...Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is.

Can we ever break free of the devices and desires of our own hearts? Might not our conscience be telling us what we most want to hear?

The shadows of our own desires stand between us and our better angels, and thus their brightness is eclipsed.