“Were it not for shadows, there would be no beauty.”

“Darkness was a beautiful thing. The kiss of a shadow. A caress as soft as moonlight.”

“A kiss would kill me, woman,
If beauty were not death…”

“Women are beautiful in the light of the day, but are even more so in the shadows of the night.”

“If everyone were not so indolent they would realise that beauty is beauty even when it is irritating and stimulating not only when it is accepted and classic.”

“Achilles' eyes were bright in the firelight, his face drawn sharply by the flickering shadows. I would know is in dark or disguise, told myself. I would know it even in madness.”

“The most I would do was use the shadow tool in Photoshop to bring out the muscular rips in my stomach, which were honestly there. Beneath the fat.”

“I had to wonder if men were so blinded by beauty that they would feel privileged to live their lives with an actual demon, so long as it was a beautiful demon.”

“How was it that destruction could be so beautiful? Was there something in the scale of it? Was there some shadow in people, lusting for it? Or was it just a coincidental combination of the elements, the final proof that beauty has no moral dimension?”

“Were they beautiful? We were all beautiful. We were in our twenties.”