David Morrell Quotes

We may, indeed, say that the hour of death is uncertain, but when we say this we think of that hour as situated in a vague and remote expanse of time; it does not occur to us that it can have any connexion with the day that has already dawned and can mean that death -- or its first assault and partial possession of us, after which it will never leave hold of us again -- may occur this very afternoon, so far from uncertain, this afternoon whose time-table, hour by hour, has been settled in advance.

Isn't it strange how we move out lives for another day? Like skipping a beat, what if a great wave should wash us all away?

Things shouldn't hinge on so very little. Sneeze and you're highway carnage. Remove one tiny stone and you're an avalanche statistic. But I guess if you can die without ever understanding how it happened then you can also live without a complete understanding of how. And in a way that's kind of relaxing.

You buy a house and you get it checked out and you feel like you've kind of made your mark here in some way. And then an act of God just comes up the coast and has the potential to just completely wipe it clean. Weather like that is certainly humbling.

I've made peace with insecurity... because there is no security of any kind.

The foundations of our lives are far more fragile than we think. So we are severely shaken when life turns out to have a will of its own.

There will always be something to ruin our lives, it all depends on what or which finds us first. We are always ripe and ready to be taken.

This is part of the involuntary bargain we make with the world just by being alive. We get to experiences the splendor of nature, the beauty of art, the balm of love and the sheer joy of existence, always with the knowledge that illness, injury, natural disaster, or pure evil can end it in an instant for ourselves or someone we love.

There is no sure solution to some dangers.

I don't know how long anything is going to last, so I have to make sure I have something to do tomorrow.

I'm not fixated on death but I know tomorrows are not guaranteed.

Death and disaster are at our shoulders every second of our lives, trying to get at us. Missing, a lot of the time. A lot of miles on the motorway without a front wheel blow-out. A lot of viruses that slither through our bodies without snagging. A lot of pianos that fall a minute after we've passed. Or a month, it makes no difference. So unless we're going to get down on our knees and give thanks every time disaster misses, it makes no sense to moan when it strikes.

Life is a flimsy branch over an abyss.

You can plan all you want to. You can lie in your morning bed and fill whole notebooks with schemes and intentions. But within a single afternoon, within hours or minutes, everything you plan and everything you have fought to make yourself can be undone as a slug is undone when salt is poured on him. And right up to the moment when you find yourself dissolving into foam you can still believe you are doing fine.

Life does not seem to present itself to me for my convenience, to box itself up nicely so I can write about it with wisdom and a point to make before putting it on a shelf somewhere.

I believe in diversification of income, because you never know what will happen. I'm a slightly paranoid person who thinks things could be ruined at any time.

Anything can go away. There's no such thing as safety and security. You can do things that give you the illusion of safety and security, but there's really no such thing.

This was the consequence of seeing too much and understanding the horrible truth: No one is safe. The world is not manageable.

An abundance of some good things is perfectly compatible with the scarcity of others; that life is everywhere precarious, man everywhere small.

Anything can happen in stock markets and you ought to conduct your affairs so that if the most extraordinary events happen, that you're still around to play the next day.

Life and death were so unpredictable. So close to each other. We existed moment to moment, never knowing who would be the next to leave this world.

He seemed to be talking about my fears, my insecurity, and my unwillingness to see what was wonderful because tomorrow it might disappear and I might suffer. The gods throw the dice, and they don't ask whether we want to be in the game or not.

Pull a string, a puppet moves ... each man must realize that it can all disappear very quickly: the cat, the woman, the job, the front tire, the bed, the walls, the room; all our necessities including love, rest on foundations of sand - and any given cause, no matter how unrelated: the death of a boy in Hong Kong or a blizzard in Omaha ... can serve as your undoing. all your chinaware crashing to the kitchen floor, your girl will enter and you'll be standing, drunk, in the center of it and she'll ask: my god, what's the matter? and you'll answer: I don't know, I don't know.

Nothing is really 'safe'.

Sometimes it seemed to him that his life was delicate as a dandelion. One little puff from any direction, and it was blown to bits.