Douglas Preston > Quotes

“We all have a Monster within; the difference is in degree, not in kind.”
― Douglas Preston, The Monster of Florence

“It's a very bad habit, but one I find hard to break.”
― Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

“The truth shall make you free, but first it will make you miserable.”
― Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child, Gideon's Sword

“What we have here is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.”
― Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, Relic

“The wise and good are outnumbered a thousand to one by the brutal and stupid.”
― Douglas Preston, The Cabinet of Curiosities

“You think of yourself as an "individual person", with a unique and separate mind. You think you are born and you think you die. All your life you feel separate and alone. Sometimes desperately so. You fear death because you fear the loss of individuality. All this is an illusion. You, he, she, those things around you living or not, the stars and galaxies, the empty space in between- these are not distinct, separate objects. All is fundamentally entangled.”
― Douglas Preston, Blasphemy

“One can reach the gates of hell just as easily by short steps as by large.”
― Douglas Preston, The Cabinet of Curiosities

“You cannot stare evil in the face; it has no face. It has no body, no bones, no blood. Any attempt to describe it ends in glibness and self-delusion.”
― Douglas Preston, The Monster of Florence

“Once again, we shall have to operate not only outside the box, but outside the room containing the box.”
― Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

“I can see that an insufficent, or perhaps even defective, socialization process has led you to believe that four-letter words add power to languauge”
― Preston and Child

“He found Pendergast's cool gaze on him, and he fidgeted. He'd forgotten about those eyes. They made you feel like you had just been stripped of your secrets.”
― Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child, Brimstone

“People need history in order to know themselves, to build a sense of identity and pride, continuity, community, and hope for the future.”
― Douglas Preston, The Lost City of the Monkey God

“I have found that liars in the end communicate more truth than do truth tellers.” “How’s that?” “Because truth is the safest lie.”
― Douglas Preston, Still Life With Crows

“My dear Vincent”
― Douglas Preston

“I would ask the reader to pause for a moment and ponder the statistics. Statistics are mere numbers; they need to be translated into human experience. What would a 90 percent mortality rate mean to the survivors and their society? The Black Death in Europe at its worst carried off 30 to 60 percent of the population. That was devastating enough. But the mortality rate wasn’t high enough to destroy European civilization. A 90 percent mortality rate is high enough: It does not just kill people; it annihilates societies; it destroys languages, religions, histories, and cultures. It chokes off the transmission of knowledge from one generation to the next. The survivors are deprived of that vital human connection to their past; they are robbed of their stories, their music and dance, their spiritual practices and beliefs—they are stripped of their very identity.”
― Douglas Preston, The Lost City of the Monkey God

“Where are you from, Mr. Pendergast? Can't quite place the accent.”
“New Orleans.”
“What a coincidence! I went there for Mardi Gras once."
“How nice for you. I myself have never attended.”
Ludwig paused, the smile frozen on his face, wondering how to steer the conversation onto a more pertinent topic.”
― Douglas Preston, Still Life With Crows

“A human being creates complexity by writing a novel on the surface of paper; a weather system creates complexity by writing waves on the surface of an ocean. What is the difference between the information carried in the words of a novel and the information carried on the waves of the sea? Listen, and the waves will speak, and someday, I tell you, you will write your thoughts on the surface of the sea.”
― Douglas Preston, Blasphemy

“I have often found it true that the louder a person speaks, the less they have to say.”
― Douglas Preston, Reliquary

“How awful a knowledge of the truth can be.”
― Douglas Preston, Blue Labyrinth

“I’m afraid I don’t suffer petty bureaucrats gladly. A very bad habit, but one I find hard to break. Nevertheless, you will find, Dr. Kelly, that humiliation and blackmail, when used judiciously, can be marvelously effective”
― Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child, The Cabinet of Curiosities

“A strange, pale figure emerged—Pendergast?—and she felt herself suddenly in his arms, lifted bodily as if she were a child again, her head cradled against his chest. She felt his shoulders began to convulse, faintly, regularly, almost as if he was weeping. But that was, of course, impossible, as Pendergast would never cry.”
― Douglas Preston, White Fire

“Dr. Albert Frock: Well, how goes the gradual extinction of the human race, Lieutenant?
Lt. Vincent D'Agosta: I'm doing what I can to keep it orderly.”
― Douglas Preston

“Most people are about as aware of their surroundings as a sea cucumber.”
― Douglas Preston, Blue Labyrinth

“The mandalas were meant to be objects of contemplation, aids to meditation, their proportions magically balanced to purify and calm the mind. To stare at a mandala was to experience, if only briefly, the nothingness that is at the heart of enlightenment.”
― Douglas Preston, The Wheel of Darkness

“We live in a world gone crazy for resources. Everybody on Google Earth can look at this place now. If you don’t move to protect it, it will disappear. Everything in the world is vulnerable.”
― Douglas Preston, The Lost City of the Monkey God

“Already up to his waist in the quaking bog, Pendergast stopped struggling and stared up at his assassin. The icy glitter in the pale gray eyes spoke more eloquently of his hatred and despair than any words he might have spoken, and it shook Esterhazy to the core.”
― Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child, Cold Vengeance

“No civilization has survived forever. All move toward dissolution, one after the other, like waves of the sea falling upon the shore. None, including ours, is exempt from the universal fate.”
― Douglas Preston, The Lost City of the Monkey God

“Sleep is an unfortunate biological requirement that both wastes time and leaves one vulnerable.”
― Douglas Preston, Brimstone

“But we were just picnicking friends”
― Douglas Preston, The Monster of Florence

“The Monster’s crimes were so horrific that a mere man could not possibly have committed them. Satan, in the end, had to be invoked.”
― Douglas Preston, The Monster of Florence