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She shouldn’t have been beautiful—she was too forward, too freckled, too thin. Still… Oh, to hell with it all. He wasn’t hungry, anyway. He reached out and took her hand, drawing her to him. She drifted near, until she was close enough to kiss. Close enough for him to see the green of her eyes, widening as he turned her hand over, palm up. “There’s something I’ve wanted to do since the first moment I saw you,” he said. It came out close to a whisper. “Oh?” He could feel the puff of breath from that word against his nose. “Don’t even think of arguing.” She shook her head. Her lips opened, an impossible, inviting fraction. He set the fork in the palm of her hand and closed his fingers tightly around hers. “I want you to eat,” he said. ↗
I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who make things beautiful. Amor fati: let that be my love henceforth! I do not want to wage war against what is ugly. I do not want to accuse; I do not even want to accuse those who accuse. Looking away shall be my only negation. And all in all and on the whole: some day I wish to be only a Yes-sayer. ↗
[speaking of a friend named Lavendar Lewis] 'I think her parents gave her the only right and fitting name that could possibly be given her,' said Anne. 'If they had been so blind as to name her Elizabeth or Nellie or Muriel she must have been called Lavendar just the same, I think. It's so suggestive of sweetness and old-fashioned graces and "silk attire." Now, my name just smacks of bread and butter, patchwork and chores.' 'Oh, I don't think so,' said Diana. 'Anne seems to me real stately and like a queen. But I'd like Kerenhappuch if it happened to be your name. I think people make their names nice or ugly just by what they are themselves. I can't bear Josie or Gertie for names now but before I knew the Pye girls I thought them real pretty.' 'That's a lovely idea, Diana,' said Anne enthusiastically. 'Living so that you beautify your name, even if it wasn't beautiful to begin with...making it stand in people's thoughts for something so lovely and pleasant that they never think of it by itself. Thank you, Diana. ↗
Without her glasses Vivian did look a little frightening. She had tight sinewy strappy muscles and a face that was hardened and almost brutal - a face that might have been chiseled by a sculptor who had fallen out of love with the idea of beauty. ↗
nothing beautiful is indispensable to life. [...] Nothing is really beautiful unless it is useless; everything useful is ugly, for it expresses a need, and the needs of man are ignoble and disgusting, like his poor weak nature. The most useful place in the house is the lavatory." Theophile Gautier, "Mademoiselle de Maupin ↗
I want to fulfill myself in one of the rarest of destinies. I have only a dim notion of what it will be. I want it to have not a graceful curve slightly bent toward evening but a hitherto unseen beauty lovely because of the danger which works away at it overwhelms it undermines it. Oh let me be only utter beauty I shall go quickly or slowly but I shall dare what must be dared. I shall destroy appearances the casings will burn away and one evening I shall appear there in the palm of your hand quiet and pure like a glass statuette. You will see me. Round about me there will be nothing left. ↗
There are people, primarily women!--who are what I call 'conduits of emotion.' In their company, the half dead can come alive. They need not be beautiful women or girls. It's a matter of blood warmth. The integrity of the spirit." He turned the page of his sketch pad and began anew, whistling thinly through his teeth. "Thus an icy-cold soul, in the presence of one so blessed, can regain something of his lost self. Sometimes! ↗
