I can remember the times when I started including humor in novels that were suspenseful. I was told you can't do that because you can't keep the audience in suspense if they're laughing. My attitude was, if the character has a sense of humor, then that makes the character more real because that's how we deal with the vicissitudes of life, we deal with it through humor.
Dean KoontzSoutherners have many fine qualities, charm and civility among them, and a sense of the tragic.
Dean KoontzThat is, Jack thought, the way of life. The horror changes us, because we can never forget. Cursed with memory. It starts when we're old enough to know what death is and realize that sooner or later we'll lose everyone we love. We're never the same. But somehow we're all right. We go on.
Dean KoontzAnd the funny thing was if you made the best of it, if you smiled through every storm, the bad things were never as terrible as you expected them to be, and the good things were better than anything you could have wished for yourself.
Dean KoontzI imagined a life that turned out to be pretty much exactly like the one I've had. That fascinates me endlessly. I wake up many mornings, and it almost wouldn't surprise me if I woke up from it and it was all a dream.
Dean KoontzI've always operated with a great deal of self-doubt. Every time I start a new book it's like, well, this one will destroy the career and I have to overcome that feeling especially in the first hundred pages of the book.
Dean KoontzNo 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