The City

by Dean Koontz

I understood for the first time why music matters so much, how it reminds us of who we are and where we came from, of all the good times and the sadness, too.

My grandparents had taught my mother—and she had taught me—that when you did anything you should do it well, not for praise but for the personal satisfaction of striving to be the best.

“That’s life. Always something, more good than bad, but always interesting if you’re paying attention.”

Maybe the difference between horror and holiday was just the width of an ordinary street.

In our lives, we come to moments of great significance that we fail to recognize, the meaning of which sometimes does not occur to us for many years. Each of us has his agenda and focuses on it, and therefore we are often blind to what is before our eyes.

Sometimes a girl can be not classically beautiful but so cute that you wouldn’t even notice a dozen classic beauties if they walked past naked.

there’s a lot to learn about art. You need to train your eye. But when it comes to what it means, no stuffy expert in the world has a right to tell you what you should think about a painting. Art is subjective. Whatever comfort or delight you get from a painting is your business. What it says, it says to you.

“Surrendering to fear destroys many lives. Indulgence in stubborn anger destroys even more. But guilt, Jonah, is no less a destroyer of lives. I speak to you as an expert on all three. Fear can be overcome. You may let go of anger. And guilt can be forgiven.”

One of the many wonders of this world is that, if we allow it to happen, anyone newly met can all but overnight become a central figure in our lives, hardly less essential to us than air and water. Although we’ve made it a world of hatred and envy and violence, the preponderance of evidence proves to me that it is a world created to inspire friendship and love and kindness.

In our lives, we come to moments of great significance that we fail to recognize, the meaning of which does not occur to us for many years. Each of us has his agenda and focuses on it, and therefore we are often blind to what is before our eyes.