It's a bit like the feeling I get when I'm standing on a cliff or high building, looking down at a suicidal drop. I start thinking about what would happen if I stepped off, the rush of the fall, the shattering collision, the quiet emptiness of death. Part of me wants to experience the thrill of complete surrender.

Darren Shan

You do not have to be alone. The world never inflicts loneliness upon us. That is something we choose or reject by ourselves.

Darren Shan

rejects loneliness world

Destiny's what you make of it. You have to face whatever life throws at you.

Darren Shan

destiny faces

Real life's nasty. It's cruel. It doesn't care about heroes and happy endings and the way things should be. In real life, bad things happen. People die. Fights are lost. Evil often wins.

Darren Shan

real truth hero

It is good to be taught humility when we are young. If we do not exeperience pain as children, we will cause pain as adults.

Darren Shan

pain humility children

If he turned his back on humanity now, it would be forever.

Darren Shan

humanity would-be forever

A world of "if"s, but it would make no difference. If I could go back in time... but I couldn't. The past was behind me. The best thing now would be to stop looking over my shoulder. It was time to forget the past and look to the present and future.

Darren Shan

differences would-be past

I know that no matter how lonely I get, I'll never be truly alone again. Our loved ones don't leave us. They just move out of sight for a while, and wait...in the shades.

Darren Shan

lonely sight moving

You didn't want to die. Most mortals don't, even if they find themselves in as desolate and soul-destroying a spot as you. Almost all of those who take their own lives wish at the last moment that they hadn't. They see at the end how much they've given up, how precious life is, even when it's treated them like dirt and crushed their dreams. Many think they've passed beyond hope, but they never really have, not until they pass beyond life itself. Alas, that knowledge comes too late for most would-be-suicides and they die with regret. Very few are offered the chance that you have been handed.

Darren Shan

regret suicide dream

You can't hang around waiting for somebody else to pull your strings. Destiny's what you make of it. You have to face whatever life throws at you. And if it throws more than you'd like, more than you think you can handle? Well then you just have to find the heroism within yourself and play out the hand you've been dealt. The universe never sets a challenge that can't be met. You just need to believe in yourself in order to find the strength to face it.

Darren Shan

destiny believe thinking

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing." - Harkat Mulds (Hunters of the Dusk)

Darren Shan

hunters dangerous littles

I don't like it, but my hands are tied. I just want you to know this: if I ever get the chance to betray you, I will. If the opportunity arises to pay you back, I'll take it. You'll never be able to trust me.

Darren Shan

want opportunity hands

But you're like me,” he says. “An outsider. Different. A freak. We're both weird, which is why we get along.

Darren Shan

outsiders freak different

But stories don't end. They continue as long as you're alive. You just have to get on with things. Turn the page, start a new chapter, find out what's in store for you next, and keep your fingers crossed that it's not too awful. Even if you know in your heart and soul that it most probably will be.

Darren Shan

soul heart long

Even in death may you triumphant

Darren Shan

triumphant may

The demons were scary, but girls - Well, girls are really terrifying

Darren Shan

demon scary girl

It is too easy to say 'what if' and paint a picture of a perfect world.

Darren Shan

ifs-and what-if perfect

Childhood is the purest state. The pure of heart never leave it behind. Their life merely takes them on a cirtuitous route away from, and then back to it.

Darren Shan

childhood states heart

Better not to start down a wrong path at all than head down it in the hope of making a detour when something better came along.

Darren Shan

something-better detours path

Destiny is a tower of cards - nudge one just an inch and everything stacked on top comes crashing down. P116

Darren Shan

destiny towers cards

No, thats not how it happened... Mr crepsley dropped. He was impaled on the stakes. He died. And it was awful... His cries as he writhed there, bleeding and dying, burning and screaming, will stay with me till I die. Maybe I'll even carry them with me after I go.

Darren Shan

burning awful dying