Dean Koontz

“I have been reading Stephen King since CARRIE and hope to read him for many years to come.”

“Although charismatic, James Dean is no Harrison Ford. In the majority of his movies, sooner or later he got the crap beaten out of him.”

“Every book has some real life in it. I was never pursued by an evil twin clone, but everything else in MR. MURDER was pretty much out of my own life.”

“Because people see violence on the movie screen, they're not going to go out and hold up a liquor store and kill somebody. It really doesn't correlate.”

“A politician's goal is always to manipulate public debate. I think there are some politicians with higher goals. But all of them get corrupted by power.”

“The only reason I would write a sequel is if I were struck by an idea that I felt to be equal to the original. Too many sequels diminish the original.”

“I never discuss a novel while I'm writing it, for fear that talking about it will diminish my desire to write it.”

“Readers will stay with an author, no matter what the variations in style and genre, as long as they get that sense of story, of character, of empathetic involvement.”

“Human beings can always be relied upon to exert, with vigor, their God-given right to be stupid.”

“I do give books as gifts sometimes, when people would rather have one than a new Ferrari.”

“Vladimir Nabokov said the two great evils of the 20th century were Marx and Freud. He was absolutely correct.”

“Some days I'm lucky to squeeze out a page of copy that pleases me, but I get as many as six or seven pages on a very good day; the average is probably three pages.”

“Literary fiction, as a strict genre, is all but dead. Meanwhile, most genres flourish.”

“I've got a long list of books I wish I'd never written-and I've kept them all out of print for the past 20 years.”

“I've not seen in my lifetime any politician who is a heroic figure. The manipulation that all politicians use on one level or another is so transparent.”

“Although I've said a million times that I'm not a horror writer, I do like horror.”

“A fanatic is a nut who has something to believe in.”

“I have avoided becoming stale by putting a little water on the plate, lying on the plate, and having myself refreshed in a toaster oven for 23 minutes once every month.”

“I try not to spend too much time on partisan politics. Life's too short for that. I don't really believe that there have been many human problems solved by politics.”

“I believe that I was a dog in a past life. That's the only thing that would explain why I like to snack on Purina Dog Chow.”