John Connolly (author) Quotes

There's a difference between living and just surviving. Do something you love, and find someone to l...

Slow animals always become prey in the end.

But he was wounded, and tired, and winter was still upon him.

It’s a full-time job being homeless. It’s a full-time job being poor.

The trick was not to stifle the emotions, but to control them. Love, anger, grief – all were weapons...

You pay by the hour, even if the job only takes five minutes. I don’t do fractions.

Misery loved company, but damnation needed it.

If cats could count, they’d start getting nervous around the time they put paid to their fifth life.

A condensed Shakespeare with all of the dull parts removed, leaving only the great moments of drama:...

Know a man by his metaphors.

Most of the bad situations I've encountered began with the best of intentions.

After all, evil was a kind of poison, an infection of the soul.

Because to ignore what had happened in the recent and distant pasts, to turn away and look elsewhere...

The law doesn't require truth, only the appearance of it. Most cases simply rest on a version of it ...

It has always seemed to me that there are two types of people in this world: those rendered impotent...

The Detective was different. Not that he wasn't a good man; Willie had heard enough about him to und...

As for dying, he didn't believe that he was frightened of it: the manner of it, perhaps, but not the...

They were on the side of the angels, even if the angels weren't entirely sure that this was a good t...

Perhaps it's true that all men love their fathers, no matter how terrible the things they do to thei...

After all, no relationship could function or survive under the burden of total honesty.

Real life was curious enough without the embellishments of fiction.

You cannot perform acts of evil in the name of a greater good, because the good suffers. It is corru...

The nature of humanity, its essence, is to feel another's pain as one's own, and to act to take that...

Regrets, Blacksmith, make poor currency. You can't but back with them what you most desire.

When did you get so clever?""When I realized I wasn't as clever as I thought.

Wickedness never rests easily so, in a way, one might almost feel pity for the wicked, for they are ...

Samuel understood at last why this being hated men and women so much: he hated them because they wer...

No matter how hard Evil tries, it can never quite match up to the power of Good, because Evil is ult...

After all this time, he had hope, and then hope was gone, and he hates himself for giving in to hope...

Evil, unlike good, is constantly at war with those most like itself, and ambition is its spur.

If there is anything worse than evil, it is nothingness. At least evil has a form, and a voice, and ...

A demon obsessed with being human is a demon no longer

But don't they say that all is fair in love and war? I heard that somewhere.""'They?' Who are 'they?...

We must have taken a wrong turn turning somewhere.""Where, Purgatory?" said Dozy. "We're in Hell.

No matter how hard Evil tries, it can never quite match up to the power of Good, because Evil is ult...

And Nurd, who had never had a mother and father, and who had never loved or been loved, marvelled at...

‎"Sarge, mr. Nurd here is threatening to turn me to jelly.""really?" said Sarge. "what flavor?

It is a curious fact that small boys are more terrified of their babysitters than small girls are. I...

There are some truths so terrible that they should not be spoken aloud, so appalling that even to ac...

When one encounters enough strangeness, then what is strange ultimately becomes familiar.The mind ca...

And I told him that I believed in God because I had seen His opposite. I had seen all that He was no...

She had not given me the cross to keep the bad men away, as a child might have been expected to do. ...

These stories were very old, as old as people, and they had survived because they were very powerful...

Stories come alive in the telling. Without a human voice to read them aloud, or a pair of wide eyes ...

We are not meant to know the time or the nature of our deaths (for all of us secretly hope that we m...

For in every adult there dwells the child that was, and in every child there lies the adult that wil...

Stories come alive in the telling. (…)They lay dormant, hoping for the chance to emerge. Once someon...

Before she came ill, David's mother would often tell him that stories were alive. They weren't alive...

It is one thing to be brave in front of others, perhaps for fear of being branded a coward and becom...

He had quite liked the dwarfs. He often had no idea what they were talking about, but for a group of...

What do you believe in?’ asked David.‘I believe in those whom I love and trust. All else is foolishn...

It didn't help when he told David that his mother would always be with him, even if he couldn't see ...

And, in the darkness, David closed his eyes as all that was lost was found again.

He became merely the broken statue of a beast, now without another's fear to animate it.

Once upon a time – for that is how all stories should begin – there was a boy who lost his mother.

We all have our routines," he said softly."But they must have a purpose and provide an outcome that ...

David could tell, by looking at her face as she read, whether or not the story contained in the book...

These were the tales that echoed in the head long after the books that contained them were cast asid...

And the Crooked Man heard her dreams, because that was where he wandered. His place was the land of ...

I think the act of reading imbues the reader with a sensitivity toward the outside world that people...

My feelings for Raphael are mine, and mine alone. I loved him, and that is all anyone needs to know....

I believe in those whom I love and trust. All else is foolishness. This god is as empty as his churc...

The stories in books hate the stories contained in newspapers.

Unless you know the code, it has no meaning.

Story!" The dwarf snorted. "You'll be talking about "happily ever after" next. Do we look happy? The...

We lie to protect our children, and in lying we expose them to the greatest of harms

Why did you shoot him?""You weren't around," I replied, my teeth gritted in pain. "If you'd been her...

What's seldom is wonderful.

The nature of compassion isn't coming to terms with your own suffering and applying it to others: It...

I used to think this was all about good and evil,” said Rickett, “but it’s not.”“No?”“There’s a kind...

The biggest life change any man would ever experience was the ending of it.

Law and justice are not the same.

Being shot at for years by men of a particular nationality will tend to impact negatively upon one’s...

People who believe in buried gods,’ said Louis.‘Do you believe in buried gods, Detective Walsh?’‘I’m...

There was a lot to be said for a man’s capacity to be comfortable while alone.

Dogs were generally incompatible with melancholy.

If it is true that nature abhors a vacuum, then criminality regards it as a business opportunity.

Was that his name? I never had a chance to ask. He was too intent upon tearing out my throat for us ...

I dream dark dreams. I dream of a figure moving through the forest, of children flying from his path...

I feel that I'll be buried in Ireland and don't think I'll ever live in the U.S. I'm not comfortable...

The only person who needs to know about failure is yourself.

You have to understand that only the very worst end up here: the ones whose anger made them kill, an...