The House at the End of the World

by Dean Koontz

She paints in rebellion against abstract impressionism and all the soulless schools of modernism and postmodernism.

There is something sacred about great suffering, and it is the sacredness that makes the pain endurable. To speak of the past, to describe her ordeal, she has nothing but words, and words are insufficient to the task;

The three large paintings are abstract expressionist works blazing with colors, shapes, and illusions of movement that allow for an infinite number of interpretations but mean nothing.

The passion of angry ideologues, the ignorance of the arrogant, the ferocity of utopians—how can such people lead the world to anything but its end?”

This is how she’s managed to function through personal catastrophes that should have destroyed her: Focus intently on quotidian needs and trust that maintaining routines will eventually restore meaning to life

She does not believe that any political ideology can shape society into a utopia. She knows that, instead, even the most earnest utopians always and everywhere create horrific dystopias.

those who believe in revolutionary change and great leaps forward always thrill to the promise of the new to a degree beyond all reason.

the reality that in a well-lived life, there is never any escape from commitment, from responsibility