“I often stood in front of the mirror alone, wondering how ugly a person could get.”

Source: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962), Ch. 17
Context: Later, hiding in the latrine from the black boys, I'd take a look at my own self in the mirror and wonder how it was possible that anybody could manage such an enormous thing as being what he was.

pg 40
Source: Identity (1998)

Vergil in Averno (1987)

in other words, when it acquires new sensitiveness; and the novel's success lies in its own sensitiveness, not in the success of its subject matter.
Source: Aspects of the Novel (1927), Chapter One: Introductory

BBC HARDTalk interview, 15 November 2011.

Variant: I'm always finding humans at their best and worst. I see their ugly and their beauty and I wonder how the same can be both.
Source: The Book Thief

Expecting to Fly, from Buffalo Springfield Again
Song lyrics, With Buffalo Springfield