Quotes about beauty
page 11

“Every once in a while you just have to decide to do something very crazy and very right--just to dare yourself to live. I don't mean doing something stupid and destructive--just something fun and good and beautiful.”

Regina Doman (1970) American writer

Source: The Shadow of the Bear

Stupidity

“I hunger for your sleek laugh and your hands the color of a furious harvest. I want to eat the sunbeams flaring in your beauty.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Variant: I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.
Source: The Poetry of Pablo Neruda

Hunger, Color

“I am not loved. I am not a beautiful soul. I am not a good-natured, giving person. I am not anybody's savior.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Choke

Source: Choke

Love, Soul, Nature, Personality

“beautiful insane
in the rain”

Jack Kerouac book The Subterraneans

Source: The Subterraneans

“You want to know what pain is? Try running out of Advil when you've got a Category Five period. I've had cramps that would make grown men beg for a bullet between the eyes."
- Jennifer, "Beauty Queens”

Libba Bray (1964) American teen writer

Source: Beauty Queens

Men, Pain

“Kisses, even to the air, are beautiful.”

Drew Barrymore (1975) American actress, director and producer

Romantic, Kiss

“You are so beautiful, he mouthed. But of course she couldn’t see his lips. Guess he was going to have to show her.”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover Mine

“There was her face, like a summer peach, beautiful and warm, and the light of the candles reflected in her dark eyes. [He] held his breath. The entire world waited and held its breath.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

World, Light, Waiting, Summer

“The world needed more fireworks- especially now that there was going to be a shortage of beautiful, useless things.”

Scott Westerfeld book Specials

Source: Specials

World

“You paid for every second of beauty you managed to steal.”

Janet Fitch (1955) American writer

Source: Paint it Black

“The potential beauty of human life is constantly made ugly by man's ever-recurring song of retaliation.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Life

“We think a flower on a cliff is beautiful
Because we stop our feet at the cliff's edge
Unable to step out into the sky
Like that fearless flower
--Sosuke Aizen, Flower on the Precipice”

Tite Kubo (1977) Japanese manga artist

Flowers, Thinking

“I’ve heard people say that the more you like someone, the more you think they are beautiful even if you didn’t think so in the beginning.”

Jenny Han book P.S. I Still Love You

Source: P.S. I Still Love You

People, Thinking

“Beauty exists where you least expect to find it.”

Gail Tsukiyama The Samurai's Garden

Source: The Samurai's Garden

“Art produces ugly things which frequently become more beautiful with time. Fashion, on the other hand, produces beautiful things which always become ugly with time.”

Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager and filmmaker

As quoted in New York World Telegram & Sun (21 August 1960); also in Threads: My Life Behind the Seams in the High-Stakes World of Fashion (2004) by Joseph Abboud, p. 79

Art, Fashion, Time

“Sometimes memory tricks you. Sometimes beauty is best when it's distant.”

David Levithan book Every Day

Source: Every Day

Distant, Memory

“Why do beautiful songs make you sad?" "Because they aren't true." "Never?" "Nothing is beautiful and true.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005), p. 43

Sad, Beauty, Sadness

“The sculptor produces the beautiful statue by chipping away such parts of the marble block as are not needed - it is a process of elimination.”

Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul

Parting

“as the shadows assume
shapes
I fight the slow
retreat

now
my once-promise
dwindling
dwindling

now
lighting new cigarettes
pouring more
drinks

it has been a beautiful
fight

still
is.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Source: You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense

Drink, Light, Fight

“The answer must be, I think, that beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there.”

Annie Dillard book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Source: Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Thinking, Sense

“Here we are at the bottom, almost empty. It's like confetti, these dried remnants you find in the street for a party no one invited you to. But they used to be, I can admit, part of something beautiful.”

Daniel Handler book Why We Broke Up

Source: Why We Broke Up

Parting

“Maybe that is what beauty was, for humans. Accidents, imperfections, placed inside a pretty pattern. Asymmetry. The defiance of mathematics.”

Matt Haig (1975) British writer

Source: The Humans

Mathematics

“So my own sister will not promote me? Speaking of which, weren't you supposed to find me a beautiful future wife with a small fortune? Have you had any success on that front?
- Yes - I have warned them all.”

Libba Bray book Rebel Angels

Source: Rebel Angels

Sister, Success, Future

“For those who know the value of and exquisite taste of solitary freedom (for one is only free when alone), the act of leaving is the bravest and most beautiful of all.”

Isabelle Eberhardt (1877–1904) Swiss explorer and author

Source: The Nomad: The Diaries of Isabelle Eberhardt

Freedom

“My wife, ladies and gentlemen. Beauty, brains, and now brawn.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Source: The Ruby Circle

“Despite everything, life is full of beauty and meaning.”

Etty Hillesum (1914–1943) Jewish diarist

Source: Lettres De Westerbork

Life

“As many times as I told her she was beautiful, I know that she never believed me. As many times as I said it didn’t matter, I knew that to her it did.”

Jennifer Weiner book Good in Bed

Source: Good in Bed

Time

“for once, you believed in yourself. you believed you were beautiful and so did the rest of the world.”

Sarah Dessen book Keeping the Moon

Source: Keeping the Moon

World

“I want to be untouchable and beautiful and completely dead inside.”

Francesca Lia Block (1962) American children's writer

Source: Baby Be-Bop

Dead

“The beauty of things must be that they end.”

Jack Kerouac book Tristessa

Source: Tristessa

“But aren't many gardens beautiful because they are imperfect?… aren't the strange, new flowers that arise by mistake or misadventure as pleasing as the well-tended and planned?”

Libba Bray book The Sweet Far Thing

Source: The Sweet Far Thing

Flowers

“It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.”

Leo Tolstoy book The Kreutzer Sonata

Variant: What a strange illusion it is to suppose that beauty is goodness.
Source: The Kreutzer Sonata

Beauty

“To be beautiful you had to be willowy and tall. When you were as short as Clary was, just over five feet, you were cute. Not pretty or beautiful, but cute.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

“The rose petal floats on water. The kingfisher flashes above the pond. Life and beauty swirl in the midst of death.”

Robert Jordan book The Eye of the World

al'Lan Mandragoran
(15 January 1990)
Source: The Eye of the World

Life, Death, Water

“I have found my star. She is beauty and grace. Elegance and goodness. My laughter in winter. She is courageous and strong. Bold and tempting. Unlike any other in all the universe, and I cannot touch her. I dare not even try." [Zarek]”

Sherrilyn Kenyon book Dance with the Devil

Source: Dance with the Devil

Star, Courage, Laughter, Strong

“Things without meaning are the most beautiful ones.”

Elena Ferrante book The Story of a New Name

Source: The Story of a New Name

“They wore their strange beauty like war paint.”

Holly Black book The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

Source: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

War, Painting

“True beauty is rare, and seldom recognized by the one who possesses it.”

Francine Rivers book A Voice in the Wind

Source: A Voice in the Wind

“True beauty is about who you are as a human being, your principles, your moral compass.”

Ellen DeGeneres (1958) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actress

Source: Seriously... I'm Kidding

Beauty

“I wish I could write a beautiful book to break those hearts that are soon to cease to exist: a book of faith and small neat worlds and of people who live by the philosophies of popular songs.”

Zelda Fitzgerald (1900–1948) Novelist, wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald

People, Books, World, Faith

“Let those who wish have their respectability- I wanted freedom, freedom to indulge in whatever caprice struck my fancy, freedom to search in the farthermost corners of the earth for the beautiful, the joyous, and the romantic.”

Richard Halliburton (1900–1939) American writer

The Royal Road to Romance (1925).
Context: Youth -- nothing else worth having in the world... and I had youth, the transitory, the fugitive, now, completely and abundantly. Yet what was I going to do with it? Certainly not squander its gold on the commonplace quest for riches and respectability, and then secretly lament the price that had to be paid for these futile ideals. Let those who wish have their respectability -- I wanted freedom, freedom to indulge in whatever caprice struck my fancy, freedom to search in the farthermost corners of the earth for the beautiful, the joyous and the romantic.

Search, Freedom

“It's as if he can no longer acknowledge the love he felt or the pain I am in. I have been dismissed. I don't think I was smarter or as beautiful as the other girls he did this to. It's just that I was me. It was all I had.”

Emma Forrest (1976) British journalist, novelist and screenwriter

Source: Your Voice in My Head

Love, Pain, Girl, Thinking

“A flower may be beautiful all on its own, but a person is never truly beautiful unless someone's eyes show him that he is beautiful.”

Laurell K. Hamilton A Stroke of Midnight

Ivi; p. 147
Source: Merry Gentry series, A Stroke of Midnight (2005)

Flowers, Personality

“Hello, companion," said Magnus.

The monkey made a terrible sound, half snarl and half hiss.

"I begin to rather doubt the beauty of our friendship," said Magnus.”

Cassandra Clare The Bane Chronicles

Magnus Bane to a monkey in 1791, p. 12.
Source: The Bane Chronicles, What Really Happened in Peru (2013)
Context: He paused and admired the bromeliads, huge iridescent flower-like bowls made out of petals, shimmering with color and water. There were frogs inside the jewel-bright recesses of the flowers.
Then he looked up into the round brown eyes of a monkey.
'Hello, companion,' said Magnus.
The monkey made a terrible sound, half snarl and half hiss.
'I begin to rather doubt the beauty of our friendship,' said Magnus.

Friendship

“She had a brainy girls discomfort about her own beauty and its effects on folks.”

David Foster Wallace book Infinite Jest

Source: Infinite Jest

Girl

“There is more beauty than our eyes can bear, precious things have been put into our hands and to do nothing to honor them is to do great harm.”

Marilynne Robinson Gilead

Source: Gilead

“The sorrow was so large it threatened to tear through my skin. When he died, all things swift and beautiful and bright would be buried with him.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

Tear

“Beauty is merciless. You do not look at it, it looks at you and does not forgive.”

Nikos Kazantzakis book Report to Greco

Report to Greco (1965)

Forgiveness

“Beauty beheld in solitude is even more lethal.”

Witold Gombrowicz book Ferdydurke

Source: Ferdydurke

Solitude

“As long as you find something beautiful, good, and true to believe in and abide by, you have the equivalent of God in your life.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Source: Creating True Peace: Ending Violence in Yourself, Your Family, Your Community, and the World

Life, God

“My Emma, does not every thing serve to prove more and more the beauty of truth and sincerity in all our dealings with each other?”

Jane Austen book Emma

Source: Emma

Truth, Sincerity

“Beautiful. He'd called her beautiful. Nobody had ever called her that before, except her mother, which didn't count. Mothers were required to think you were beautiful.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

Thinking

“She was dazzling-- alight; it was agony to comprehend her beauty in a glance.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter

Source: The Beautiful And Damned

“A culture fixated on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty, but an obsession about female obedience. Women's dieting has become what Yale psychologist Judith Rodin calls a 'normative obsession,' a never-ending passion play given international coverage out of all proportion to the health risks associated with obesity, and using emotive language that does not figure even in discussions of alcohol or tobacco abuse. […] Dieting is the most potent political sedative in women's history; a quietly mad population is a tractable one.”

Naomi Wolf book The Beauty Myth

Source: The Beauty Myth (1991), Chapter 6 : 'Hunger', p. 187

Women, Health, Alcohol, History

“Beauty is desired in order that it may be befouled; not for its own sake, but for the joy brought by the certainty of profaining it.”

Georges Bataille (1897–1962) French intellectual and literary figure

Source: Erotism: Death and Sensuality

Joy

“It is conventional to call ''monster'' any blending of dissonant elements. I call ''monster'' every original inexhaustible beauty.”

Alfred Jarry (1873–1907) French writer

“You must write for yourself, above all. That is your only hope of creating something beautiful.”

Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880) French writer (1821–1880)

Hope

“Death! Strange that there should be such a word, and such a thing, and we ever forget it; that one should be living, warm and beautiful, full of hopes, desires and wants, one day, and the next be gone, utterly gone, and forever!”

Harriet Beecher Stowe book Uncle Tom's Cabin

Source: Uncle Tom's Cabin

Death, Hope, Forgetting

“It is the useless things that make life worth living and that make life dangerous too: wine, love, art, beauty. Without them life is safe, but not worth bothering with.”

Stephen Fry book Moab Is My Washpot

Referencing Oscar Wilde from the preface of "The Picture of Dorian Gray"; "All art is quite useless".
1990s, Moab is My Washpot (autobiography, 1997)
Source: Moab Is My Washpot
Context: … but love, like all art, as Oscar said, it's quite useless. It is the useless things that make life worth living and that make life dangerous too: wine, love, art, beauty. Without them life is safe but not worth bothering with.

Love, Life, Art, Wine

“Just because a person is beautiful doesn't mean there's no soul beneath. Doesn't mean that person hasn't suffered like everyone else, doesn't mean they don't hope to still be a good human being in an awful world.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List

World, Hope, Soul, Suffering

“I am sure people tell you this constantly but if you looked up 'incredibly beautiful' in the dictionary there would be a picture of you.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

People

“My god, Sage. Your eyes. How have I never noticed them? When you stand in the light. They're amazing… like molten gold. I could paint those… They're beautiful. You're beautiful.”

Richelle Mead Bloodlines

Source: Bloodlines