She Was Beautiful But Not Like Quotes & Sayings

That woman - the me that had married Charlie - had tried and failed to find a gap in all of this that was so ordinary, to take some instrument to the gap and shape it, widen it until it got big enough to slip through. She'd wanted to make a beautiful thing, like the Flax Hill natives did. But not a lantern or a bookcase, a life. Not to have what it takes, and to be surrounded by witnesses too. The man you tried with. The children. A boy version of you, or a girl version of him, or both, looking at you with clear, pitiless eyes. — Helen Oyeyemi

You forget, Moonlight, that there are different kinds of beauty. Your imagination is obsessed by the very obvious type of your cousin Olive. Oh, I've seen her - she's a stunner - but you'd never catch Allan Tierney wanting to paint her. In the horrible but expressive slang phrase, she keeps all her goods in the shop-window. But in your subconscious mind you have a conviction that nobody can be beautiful who doesn't look like Olive. Also, you remember your face as it was in the days when your soul was not allowed to shine through it. — L.M. Montgomery

She was altogether colorless and severe, and still she managed to be beautiful. Not the way that girls are generally beautiful, but more like the way a knife catches the light, makes you want to take it in your hands. — Brittany Cavallaro

She was crouched in the corner of the room, eating something off the floor. It was the old woman dressed in endless black. When she looked up this time there was no question she was there for me. She had the face of my mother but much older, her ancient decayed mouth coming closer for her good-night kiss. I steeled myself against her putrid smell, the mouthful of bitter dust, but as her lips touched mine it was like biting into a purple black plum whose fruit was brilliant red, like an explosion of intense joy. Its childhood smell wrinkled my nose with pleasure, its sweet juices ran down my chin, turning into a beautiful black ocean where I floated safely, not lost as I had imagined, but securely tucked away deep in space. — Mary Woronov

Your age?" "My age? He has to be thirty." "Farm life is going to harden you, you know. You think you'll be young and beautiful for ever and that you'll have plenty of chances, but it doesn't work like that." "She's only sixteen, Em," my father said. "She has plenty of time." "That's what you think. We're not helping, keeping her out here with no company. School didn't do a thing - not that she was there long. She's wild. She doesn't know how to make conversation." "Why are we talking about manners and society, when there are real problems to think about? — Paula McLain

She was walking toward the beauty shop when Shay came out the door moving fast. The first thing Jill noticed was Shay's hair and how it appeared really big. As Shay drew closer, Jill realized she looked like she was wearing a mask with big blue streaks over the eyes and giant red pouty lips. "What happened to you?" Jill asked in shock. "I'm not sure," Shay said, looking just as stunned. "One minute, I was reading a magazine, and the next, two women that looked like Dolly Parton descended on me like vultures. They started putting stuff on my face, then they did all kinds of things to my hair." Anne walked out of the shop next; her Napoleon hat 'do rode higher than ever. Ella followed with her little red hair ball reinflated. "Doesn't Shay just look beautiful?" Ella chirped. She looked like a hooker who'd just survived a wind tunnel, but Jill nodded and tried to smile. — Robin Alexander

I missed you," she said softly, her breath against his cheek making his body harden everywhere.
"You too."
"It's terrible to be this infatuated."
"I agree."
"I haven't felt this alive in years."
"Me either."
"Screw the interview," she said breathlessly. "Let's make out."
He saw stars. Literally. Stars. How was this possibly his life? Beautiful women did not show up on the doorsteps of disabled vets and proposition them.
"Are you an alien?" he asked.
"Not that I know of."
"Are we on Candid Camera?"
She took a quick look around the room. "You never know, but my guess is no."
"Is someone paying you a vast sum of money to make me feel like this?"
She bit her lower lip, as if deep in thought. "Not that I recall, but if a million dollars suddenly hits my account, I'll give you half."
"You must be for real. Fine. You win. Let's go make out. — Katy Regnery

It opened a little way, and a face came into the opening. It was Lona's. It's eyes were closed, but the face itself was upon me, and seemed to see me. It was as white as Eve's, white as Mara's, but did not shine like their faces. She spoke, and her voice was like a sleepy night-wind in the grass.
"Are you coming, king?" it said. "I cannot rest until you are with me, gliding down the river to the great sea, and the beautiful dream-land. The sleepiness is full of lovely things: come and see them. — George MacDonald

He couldn't believe she was real. She was like some dream, some story old men told youngsters. She made a fool out of him with the slightest grin or pout. She slept in his bed, not beside him, but around him, her aromatic legs and arms wrapped around him, her mouth against his throat, her beautiful thundercloud hair over his face, his chest. He kissed her hair. Took it to his fist and kissed it, breathed it ... Oh my God, he thought. He didn't know what it was about her that made him more insane: her belly, or the pale friction of her thighs; the small of her back, or her armpits. — Luis Alberto Urrea

Aren't you going a little overboard?" I asked, picturing a day ahead of me trying to find these items in a town I didn't know.
"Nonsense, darling. What's the point of a party if you don't go overboard."
I sat on the sofa watching her, admiring her. Not only was she beautiful, but she had a wonderful way of shaking off life's little problems, like water off a duck's back. Nothing seemed to upset her. — Rhys Bowen

This morning she told a joke to make me feel better. She's tough and funny and caring. Beautiful. And that ass. Don't look at her ass, you idiot. It's the same ass you've seen a million times, so just forget about it because the last thing you need is to start remembering what it feels like. She really isn't Lillian, is she? She sort of is, Lillian, though, in all the best ways. No, that's wrong. I'm not looking for Lillian in Lily anymore, and I haven't since we've been on the run. It's strange, but I'm starting to wonder if it wasn't Lillian I loved. Maybe what I loved was the Lily in Lillian. Oh, shit. I think I love Lily ... — Josephine Angelini

The men in the room suddenly realized that they did not want to know her better. She was beautiful, but she was beautiful in the way a forest fire was beautiful: something to be admired from a distance, not up close.
And she held her sword, and she smiled like a knife. — Terry Pratchett

He leaned against the door frame, ignoring the kick of adrenaline the sight of her produced. He wondered why, not for the first time. Isabelle used her beauty like she used her whip, but Clary didn't know she was beautiful at all. Maybe that was why. — Cassandra Clare

Shelby believed that love was like a solar eclipse - breathtakingly beautiful, absorbing, and capable of rendering you blind. She had not necessarily gone out of her way to avoid a relationship, but she hadn't wanted on either. It was called falling in love for a reason - because, inevitably, you crashed at the bottom. — Jodi Picoult

... the girl he loved, but wished he didn't love, because he didn't want to love someone who was just like him, imperfect, with faults and failings, another self-sacrificing, pathetic slave to love, who obediently read people's lips but never spoke herself, who subordinated herself and found her reward in that. But at the same time, he couldn't manage not to love her. She was everything he wished he didn't want. She was his own humiliation. And the best, the most human, the most beautiful thing he knew. — Jo Nesbo

She was gauche in movement and in a sense, ugly of face, but with how small a twist might she not suddenly have become beautiful. Her sullen mouth was full and rich - her eyes smouldered.
A yellow scarf hung loosely around her neck. Her shapeless dress was a flaming red.
For all the straightness of her back she walked with a slouch.
"Come here," said Lord Groan as she was about to pass him and the doctor.
"Yes father," she said huskily.
"Where have you been for the last fortnight, Fuchsia?"
"Oh, here and there, father," she said, staring at her shoes. She tossed her long hair and it flapped down her back like a pirate's flag. She stood in about as awkward a manner as could be conceived. Utterly unfeminine - no man could have invented it. — Mervyn Peake

I have come to revere words like "democracy" and "freedom," the right to vote, the incomprehensibly beautiful origins of my country, and the grandeur of the extraordinary vision of the founding fathers. Do I not see America's flaws? Of course I do. But I now can honor her basic, incorruptible virtues, the ones that let me walk the streets screaming my ass off that my country had no idea what it was doing in South Vietnam ... I have come to a conclusion about my country that I knew then in my bones, but lacked the courage to act on: America is a good enough country to die for even when she is wrong. — Pat Conroy

You play beautifully," she told him, although the music was obscurely classical and, because there were no lyrics, unmemorable to her. But the compliment was like a drop of water on the dry wool of his face. His cheeks seemed to soften, color, even swell. "I hope it doesn't disturb you," he said. She held out her hand, the thin string of the bakery box looped around her wrist. "Not at all," she said, although three or four times now she had hung on her husband's arm to keep him from banging the broom handle against the ceiling. "We enjoy it," she said. And then, at a loss for a more substantial compliment, she added, "You must have some beautiful piano. — Alice McDermott

Gary tried not to notice how pale Savannah was as she fixed him a pot of coffee.Her satin skin was almost translucent.He was groggy from the trance-induced sleep and had a hard time waking up, even after a long shower. He had no idea where the change of clothes had come from,but they were lying on the end of the bed when he awakened.
Savannah was beautiful, moving through the house like flowing water, like music in the air.She was dressed in faded blue jeans and a pale turquoise shirt that clung to her curves and emphasized her narrow rib cage and small waist.Her long hair was pulled back in a thick braid that hung below her bottom.Gary tried to keep his eyes to himself.He hadn't seen any evidence of Gregori this evening,but he didn't want to take any chances.He had a feeling the one thing that could change that remote expression fast was to have another man ogling Savannah. — Christine Feehan

You're beautiful, Delaney, and you could have anyone you want. Why me?"
She knew she wasn't beautiful, not like her mother. But the way he looked at her and touched her, and the tone of his voice when he said it made her almost believe him. He made her believe anything was possible. "Because you make me not want to say no. — Rachel Gibson

She came quickly over to me and held out her hand. I looked at her full of distrust. Was she doing this freely, with a light heart? Or was she doing it just to get rid of me? She put her arm around my neck, tears in her eyes. I just stood and looked at her. She offered me her mouth but I couldn't believe her, it was bound to be a sacrifice on her part, a means of getting it over with.
She said something, it sounded to me like "I love you anyway!" She said it very softly and indistinctly, I may not have heard it correctly, perhaps she didn't say exactly those words. But she threw herself passionately on my neck, held both arms around my neck a little while, even raised herself on tiptoe to reach well up, and stood thus.
Afraid that she was forcing herself to show me this tenderness, I merely said "How beautiful you are now!"
That was all I said. I stepped back, bumped against the door and walked out backward. She was left standing inside. — Knut Hamsun

Their lives have a size and a shape now. Estha has his and Rahel hers.
Edges, Borders, Boundaries, Brinks and Limits have appeared like a team of trolls on their separate horizons. Short creatures with long shadows, patrolling the Blurry End. Gentle half-moons have gathered under their eyes and they are as old as Ammu was when she died. Thirty-one.
Not old.
Not young.
But a viable die-able age. — Arundhati Roy

Is that Isobella?" Gavin asked. "Aye. Every desirable, beautiful inch." "T would seem ye are the envy of every man in the hall," Ronan said. "I can see why." "Don't take fancy to the lass," Alysandir warned. Ronan laughed and slapped his brother on the back. "Not to worrit. I value my life too much." Alysandir swallowed, his hand almost crushed the silver cup in his hand. He knew the beauty was Isobella, but his mind couldn't accept the idea. All he could think was, it had been a good thing she wasna dressed like that in the glen because he wasna certain he could have kept his gentlemanly manners. — Elaine Coffman

For she was really too lovely
too formidably lovely. I was used by now to mere unadjectived loveliness, the kind that youth and spirits hang like a rosy veil over commonplace features, an average outline and a pointless merriment. But this was something calculated, accomplished, finished
and just a little worn. It frightened me with my first glimpse of the infinity of beauty and the multiplicity of her pit-falls. What! There were women who need not fear crow's-feet, were more beautiful for being pale, could let a silver hair or two show among the dark, and their eyes brood inwardly while they smiled and chatted? but then no young man was safe for a moment! But then the world I had hitherto known had been only a warm pink nursery, while this new one was a place of darkness, perils and enchantments ... — Edith Wharton

If I was going to be a woman, I would want to be as beautiful as possible. And they said to me, 'Uh, that's as beautiful as we can get you.' And I went home and started crying to my wife, and I said, 'I have to make this picture.' And she said, 'Why?' And I said, 'Because I think I'm an interesting woman when I look at myself on screen, and I know that if I met myself at a party, I would never talk to that character because she doesn't fulfill, physically, the demands that we're brought up to think that women have to have in order for us to ask them out.' She says, 'What are you saying?' and I said, 'There's too many interesting women I have not had the experience to know in this life because I have been brainwashed.' It was not what it felt like to be a woman. It was what it felt like to be someone that people didn't respect, for the wrong reasons. I know it's a comedy. But comedy's a serious business. — Dustin Hoffman

My father was quiet ' she told him. 'My mother was not. They were polar opposites but you'd think they were a match made in heaven the way he loved her and she him. He'd sit and listen to her play for hours like it was their special language. I miss that the most their music. It made me feel ... part of something beautiful. — Amalie Howard

Justus tried to make an objective assessment of Miguel. What was the big deal with him, anyway? So he was easy on the eyes. Actually that was an understatement; he was for female eyes, a virtual feast. He was a perfect physical specimen, and very sensual. He seemed to positively ooze sex and eroticism with his every move, look, and touch. Justus turned her head toward him to steal a glance at his profile, but he caught her looking at him.
His eyes were so arresting, they were a dark, fierce green, like beautiful shining emeralds. She also noticed flecks of gold laced through them, reminiscent of cat's eyes. Not any ordinary house cat, these were the eyes of a wild predator.
He was a panther; with his black hair and green eyes and the way he moved, so gracefully, yet with definite strength and agility. She sighed to herself, so much for her objectivity. — Amanda Bretz

I sit on the bench in front of Bell's Market and think about Homer Buckland and about the beautiful girl who leaned over to open his door when he come down that path with the full red gasoline can in his right hand - she looked like a girl of no more than sixteen, a girl on her learner's permit, and her beauty was terrible, but I believe it would no longer kill the man it turned itself on; for a moment her eyes lit on me, I was not killed, although a part of me died at her feet. (from the short story Mrs. Todd's Shortcut) — Stephen King

She had thought, instinctively, that Victoria had a remarkably beautiful face. The face showed an alert awareness of life: her lips- full, overblown like clown-lips liable to laugh at the slightest provocation. She thought that her features were not chiseled but almost rugged, handsome, like a colloquial swear-word or a Vermeer peasant-girl, and a knock out at that. An overdone face, like one having two chins, two noses, that was big and abundantly cheerful but at the same time, there was a peculiarly puffy look about those eyes.'
('Left from Dhakeshwari') — Kunal Sen

Sometimes the gulls came nearer, screaming noisily as they quarreled over small fish in the pools, and sometimes they cried mournfully far away along the beach. Then Anna felt like crying too - not actually, but quietly - inside. They made a sad, and beautiful, and long-ago sound that seemed to remind her of something lovely she had once known - and lost, and never found again. But she did not know what it was. — Joan G. Robinson

I wanted to tell her she was beautiful, but it almost seemed like saying that to her would be diminishing it. You don't reassure a rainbow it's colourful, or a star that it shines. Sometimes, not saying something says more than anything else. — Nina G. Jones

On the third day Vera said:

'I love your body because it is beautiful. But I do not know your soul. I do not know whether there is a soul. Nor is it necessary for me because your body is beautiful.

But everything is mutable and you will grow old. At first your face will grow old. Your body will live longer. An old face will be a mockery before a youthful body. And then a wasted body will be a mockery to ravenous desires.

This is like the dead light of the setting sun which from the clouds above was reflected in the water... feeble and full of disillusion.

Should I not kill you so that I might always possess you for myself.'

And Vera became terrifying.

I found this unpleasant.

But from these words I understood that she had decided upon the day.

("Thirty-Three Abominations") — Lydia Zinovieva-Annibal

Hunted what?" Shea held her breath, afraid of what he might say.
"Beautiful women, little one, and I was the one who found you after all." His white teeth gleamed at her, a definite leer.
"Don't put me off like that." She had already taken advantage, sliding easily into his mind and picking out the pictures of danger and revulsion. Fear even. Not so much of their adversary, but of themselves turning into the very thing they sought to destroy.
Jacques, unprepared for her entrance into his mind, had been confident he could keep the grimmer side of their existence watered down for her. Shea had always been reluctant to enter his mind; it hadn't occurred to him that she would do so whenever she wanted.
His expression was so rueful that Shea burst out laughing. "Where I grew up, that's called being caught with your pants down."
He looked down at his body, glistening with the rain. His grin was self-mocking, his black eyes amused. "Literally. — Christine Feehan

The tide will turn, Miss Willow." A smile lurked around his mouth, but no, that was not possible, that the earl of Tiern-Cope should smile, and at her.
"It hasn't yet."
"You may find the sea casts you onto the shores of paradise." His voice was low and soft, and Olivia felt her heart stir at the sound. "Or through the very gates of hell."
"So it might." She gave herself a mental shake. Lord Tiern-Cope could not possibly be flirting with her. Impossible. "But that won't stop me from embracing this moment in all its beautiful perfection."
"With but one flaw, Miss Willow."
"Whatever could that be?"
"Don't even try to tell me I don't spoil the present perfection of your moment." The corner of his lip twitched and then gave up. He smiled, and she, perverse creature that she was, felt like she'd been tossed off a cliff with him standing at the bottom to catch her. — Carolyn Jewel

His breath halted as he stared at her. Why hadn't he seen it before? The woman in his carriage, the one who'd emerged from his carriage like a Botticelli Venus, was beautiful.
Not in the way Cassandra had been beautiful, with glittering eyes and full, red lips. Cassandra's blond beauty might have faded in time, become handsomeness instead.
This woman's beauty was simple; well-defined cheekbones, a high forehead, slender nose, and stubborn chin. As the years passed she might grow even more attractive.
He suspected that her laugh would captivate, just as her tears would act like a razor to whomever brought them forth. Her smile had already charmed him, and now her silence incited his curiosity. Not about who she was and why she was here, but about more.
Who was the woman behind the smile? — Karen Ranney

SHE WAS JUST LIKE OUR WHOLE COUNTRY - NOT QUITE YOUNG ANYMORE, BUT NOT OLD EITHER; A LITTLE BREATHLESS, VERY BEAUTIFUL, MAYBE A LITTLE STUPID, MAYBE A LOT SMARTER THAN SHE SEEMED. AND SHE WAS LOOKING FOR SOMETHING - I THINK SHE WANTED TO BE GOOD. LOOK AT THE MEN IN HER LIFE - JOE DIMAGGIO, ARTHUR MILLER, MAYBE THE KENNEDYS. LOOK AT HOW GOOD THEY SEEM! LOOK AT HOW DESIRABLE SHE WAS! THAT'S WHAT SHE WAS: SHE WAS DESIRABLE. SHE WAS FUNNY AND SEXY - AND SHE WAS VULNERABLE, TOO. SHE WAS NEVER QUITE HAPPY, SHE WAS ALWAYS A LITTLE OVERWEIGHT. SHE WAS JUST LIKE OUR WHOLE COUNTRY, — John Irving

And he married the Echo one fortunate morn,
And Woman, their beautiful daughter, was born!
The daughter of Sunshine and Echo she came
With a voice like a song, with a face like a flame;
With a face like a flame, and a voice like a song,
And happy was Man, but it was not for long!
For weather's a painfully changeable thing,
Not always the child of the Echo would sing;
And the face of the Sun may be hidden with mist,
And his child can be terribly cross if she list.
And unfortunate man had to learn with surprise
That a frown's not peculiar to masculine eyes;
That the sweetest of voices can scold and sneer,
And cannot be answered - like men - with a spear — Andrew Lang

They are so beautiful - your eyes. And so different." I sighed, trying to laugh it off. Emilia's intensity was unusual but not surprising. It didn't take a genius to understand why she'd be feeling somber tonight. "Men don't like being called beautiful ... " She grimaced at me and I saw a glimpse of my Mia return. "Whatever. Deal with it. Your eyes are beautiful. In a totally manly way, of course. — Brenna Aubrey

The principal difference between her "seductive" and her other self-portraits was the absence of self-awareness in the former and its strong presence in the latter. With time, she became brutally direct. In her later self-portraits she was no longer beautiful, merely odd-looking. She did not seduce, she simply drew attention to herself. Her face became hard, serious. The pronounced cheekbones and heavy eyebrows looks as if they had been carved out of stone. The stern black eyes looked either straight through or straight past the viewer. She deliberately exaggerated the brutality of her self-portraits. She was saying: Look at me, I'm alive and it hurts. These self-portraits were like attestations to her existence: one, two, three, four...Exhibitionism, they said. But for her, painting self-portraits was a kind of magical rite, a kind of exorcism. — Slavenka Drakulic

She was the kind of elegance
That would never tarnish.
A mixture of lace and mesh,
Like a classic heirloom that begged to be worn.
She was sharp intellect and quick wit.
The type of woman that spoke her mind,
Even if it shook.
(Or even if no one was listening.)
She was beautiful.
But not someone you'd see in magazines,
Her hips were too wide, her hair a mess of wispy tendrils,
(Rather, she was actually very ordinary.)
My, was she stubborn! She'd drive you mad!
(Sometimes, you'd probably call her crazy.)
But mostly, her laughter was a joyful moments.
Like a warm towel fresh from the dryer,
Or finding a twenty-dollar bill in your winter coat.
And that was the true revelation.
That magic does exist,
It ran through her like a wild, fiery current. — M.J. Abraham

I think so. There are so many tales, so strange and beautiful and perfect. They are not what are real, but better. I thought I had something that was magic once, but I lost it, and now I don't think it was at all." She touched her chest where the handkerchief had been and frowned. "I wish there was magic. If all the tales were true, then maybe they could tell me what I'm doing, and what I am to do now."
"Ah, now, don't cry over lost years and forgetfulness. The tales tell what they can. The rest is for us to learn. The question is, are we smart enough to figure for ourselves? Now, that's what I'd like to know. — Shannon Hale

She carried herself like a queen,: gracefully, regal, and dignified. She was all woman and every inch a lady, and he had never seen her equal, not even in Paris. He was thinking she would make the perfect mistress, but at the same time, he wonder if she would accept such a role. Beautiful, arousing, and complicated meant nothing but trouble.-Alysandir — Elaine Coffman

MAGGIE, in pain: That's what I mean; I'm a joke to most people.
QUENTIN: No, it's that you say what you mean, Maggie. You don't seem to be upholding anything, you're not - ashamed of what you are.
MAGGIE: W-what do you mean, of what I am?
... But you didn't, did you?
He turns to her in agony.
Laugh at me?
QUENTIN: No. He suddenly stands and cries out to Listener. Fraud! From the first five minutes! ... Because! I should have agreed she was a joke, a beautiful piece, trying to take herself seriously! Why did I lie to her, play this cheap benefactor, this - Listens, and now unwillingly he turns back to her.
MAGGIE: Like when you told me to fix where my dress was torn? You wanted me to be - proud of myself. Didn't you? — Arthur Miller

She was beautiful. In fact she was possibly the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She was tall, with dark black hair, light skin, and big brown eyes. Her face was beautiful, not fake beautiful like a model or an actress, because she was obviously a real person, but rather Helen of Troy, launch-a-thousand-ships kind of good-looking. — Larry Correia

When I'd checked into the bathroom with Seymour's diary under my arm, and had carefully secured the door behind me, I spotted a message almost immediately. It was not, however, in Seymour's handwriting but, unmistakably, in my sister Boo Boo's. With or without soap, her handwriting was always almost indecipherably minute, and she had easily managed to post the following message up on the mirror; 'Raise high the roof beam, carpenters. Like Ares comes the bridegroom, taller far than a tall man. Love, Irving Sappho, formerly under contract to Elysium Studios Ltd. Please be happy happy happy with your beautiful Muriel. This is an order. I outrank everybody on this block. — J.D. Salinger

Like a Falcon, she needed the dark to understand who her master was. She would learn to trust him, to rely upon him, to anticipate what he wanted from her. And like any master with his salt, he would reward her for her obedience. He would be exceedingly firm, but he would also be as fair as he could be. He had notchosen the instrument of his revenge at random. He had chosen a beautiful submissive. And what was a submissive if not adaptable -if not a survivor? — C.J. Roberts

But usually not. Usually she thinks of the path to his house, whether deer had eaten the tops of the fiddleheads, why they don't eat the peppermint saprophytes sprouting along the creek; or she visualizes the approach to the cabin, its large windows, the fuchsias in front of it where Anna's hummingbirds always hover with dirty green plumage and jeweled throats. Sometimes she thinks about her dream, the one in which her mother wakes up with no hands. The cabin smells of oil paint, but also of pine. The painter's touch is sexual and not sexual, as she herself is ... When the memory of that time came to her, it was touched by strangeness because it formed no pattern with the other events in her life. It lay in her memory like one piece of broken tile, salmon-coloured or the deep green of wet leaves, beautiful in itself but unusable in the design she was making — Robert Hass

She went on to Seishin University, the famous women's private college, and studied abroad in France for two years. A couple of years after she got back I had a chance to see her, and when I did, I was floored. I'm not sure how to put it, but she seemed faded. Like something that's been exposed to strong sunlight for a long time and the color fades. She looked much the same as before. Still beautiful, still with a nice figure ... but she seemed paler, fainter than before. It made me feel like I should grab the TV remote to ramp up the color intensity. It was a weird experience. It was hard to imagine that someone could, in the space of just a few years, visibly diminish like that. — Haruki Murakami

I understand, Bill. Because I tell myself a lot of stories to help me sleep at night. Stories about how Babe was my dearest friend, and I never betrayed her. Stories about how you and I had a great love, not just an occasional roll in the hay whenever she was out of town. Stories about how wonderful life was back then, when none of us told each other the truth, but so what? It was all so beautiful, wasn't it? It was all so lovely and gracious. Not like it is now. — Melanie Benjamin

She found her view stuck to him, and it was impossible for her not to melt from within. His beautiful dark brown eyes that used to send her wild as a teen, still had the same effect. His dark unruly hair she used to toy with. And his lips, pink, and in need of her kiss. She was blushing like a beacon with so many passions coming back to her. There was a doubt, that maybe he would recognise her. But now, she could see what an empty man he was. He didn't recognise her at all. — LeeAnn Whitaker

And as she looked at the pool she saw the waters gather up into a column, rushing up foaming and standing there before her startled eyes, and turn into the form of a man.
Not a man, a god. So perfectly formed, so handsome, with such wisdom and desire in his eyes and such quiet joy on his lips. He was breathtakingly beautiful and Anne felt herself grow weak with some unnamable longing. His eyes met hers and caught her soul tight, and she could not look away as he read every thought in her mind.
"Come," he said to her in a voice like liquid silver, "I know your mind, and it is one with mine."
Anne could not speak, but she did not need to. Her eyebrows raised in question.
He laughed, "Why to love, of course. — Elliot Mabeuse

This is what nibbling your ear sounds like." Blake created a soundtrack for his teeth.
"This is what looking into your eyes sounds like." The notes were deep and beckoning.
"This is what my mind hears when my tongue is in your mouth." The kiss sounded steamy and delicate. The rhythm was her heartbeat as he sampled her mouth.
"But when you smile. When you smile it's ... "
Blake scooted the keyboard around behind her. He needed both hands.
She put her hands on his face and smiled in amazement as the music exploded. She couldn't imagine how her simple facial gesture could inspire such a majestic sound.
He smiled back. "One thousand nine hundred and ten."
"So many? Really?"
"Yes, really. And it's not nearly enough. I want to lose count, Livia. Make me lose count." His hands left the beautiful music and grabbed handfuls of her hair. — Debra Anastasia

She was remarkably beautiful. And yet there was something in her eyes that I didn't like. A bit of...no...I don't want to say falsity...that would be too...it was--I don't know how to explain it -- it was something like triumphant cunning. Odile needed to dominate. She wanted to impose her will, her version of the truth. Her beauty had given her a lot of self-confidence and she believed, almost in good faith, that if she said something then it became true. This worked with your husband, who adored her, but not with me, and she resented me for that. — Andre Maurois

Brigan," she said, annoyed that he had not understood.
"I'll always be beautiful. Look at me. I have one hundred and sixty two bug bites, and has it made me any less beautiful? I'm missing two fingers and I have scars all over, but does anyone care? No! It just makes me more interesting! I'll always be like this, stuck in this beautiful form, and you'll have to deal with it."
He seemed to sense that she expected a grave response, but for the moment, he was incapable. "I suppose it's a burden I must bear," he said, grinning. — Kristin Cashore

A face stared up at her from the mirror beside her hand. Was that really what she looked like? Was that really what she looked like, all sharp lines and huge silver-grey eyes? Certainly, no one would ever call those features beautiful, Jame thought ruefully; but were they really enough like a boy's to have fooled that old man the alley? Well, maybe with that long black hair out of sight under a cap. It was a very young face and a defiant one, she thought with a odd sense of detachment, but frightened, too. And those extraordinary eyes ... what memories lived in them that she could not share? Stranger, where have you been she asked silently. What have you seen? The thin lips locked in their secrets.
"Ahhh!" Jame said in sudden disgust, tossing away the mirror. Fool, to be obsessed with a past she couldn't even remember. But it was all behind her now. — P.C. Hodgell

The sky was full - of blue and sun. The ocean reflected it and was flat and glossy like a fancy ballroom floor. To Martha, this was the most beautiful sight, a miracle. The ocean made her feel insignificant and slightly afraid, but in an exhilarating way. Her inclination was not to walk or dance across the water's surface. Nor to swim through it. She wanted to *be* the ocean — Kevin Henkes

I will not service your sister," he told her flatly, unable to think of anything else to say.
Elina laughed. "She does not want servicing. At least not from you."
"But when I came into your room earlier - "
"It gets cold on Steppes. We share beds. We share food. We do not share cocks. There is no cock sharing among the Daughters of the Steppes. That is disgusting."
"So then earlier . . ."
"She was inviting you to nap with us, like our brothers and cousins sometimes do. But not fuck."
"Oh."
"You sound disappointed."
"No. Just depressingly relieved."
"What?"
"Beautiful sisters invite me to bed - I usually dive in headfirst. A little time away with you and suddenly I'm . . . my father."
"I like your father. Now he is charming. You are dolt with ineffective travel-cow and cousin that keeps trying to dress me like doll."
"Is that where you got that eye patch from?"
"Yes."
"It's a nice color on you. — G.A. Aiken

It could not have been easy for Mother, an only child, to grow up without a father and with a mother who was remote. Photos of her as a child show her extremely dressed up
Cornie's beautiful little doll. But a daughter, unlike a doll, grows up, and might fall in love with and marry someone her mother does not like; she becomes an individual with her own ideas. — Cornelia Maude Spelman

Ricco will take care of you," he said. "Ricco thinks you are beautiful-he blushes when your name is mentioned."
Ricco took their order and blushed when he put a glass of wine in front of Lauren. Mary's eyes twinkled, but when he left she looked directly at Lauren and said without preamble, "Would you like to talk about Nick?"
Lauren choked on her wine. "Please,let's not ruin a lovely lunch. I already know more than enough about him."
"What,for example?" Mary persisted gently.
"I know that he's an egotistical, arrogant, bad-tempered, dictatorial tyrant!"
"And you love him." It wasn't a question, it was a statement.
"Yes," Lauren said angrily.
Mary was struggling obviously to hide her amusement at Lauren's tone. "I was certain that you did. I also suspect that he loves you. — Judith McNaught

You float like a feather," sings Radiohead, "In a beautiful world." I've listened several times to the Radiohead songs, because it was nice of Raymond to say he heard a bit of them in what I sang. I'm not sure I hear it myself, but I am pleased and touched. Sometimes that's what you need, just a quick casual word of knowledgeable encouragement. Radiohead reminds me a little of the songs in Garden State soundtrack. Now, that's a soundtrack. They were all songs that Zach Braff liked, so he put them in his movie. And there's that beautiful moment near the beginning where Natalie Portman hands him the headphones and she watches him listen to the song and she smiles her huge, innocent Natalie Portman smile. — Nicholson Baker

Even though she had an overbite and the shakes, she was six feet tall and beautiful, and not like a statue or a perfume advertisement, but in a realistic way, like how a truck or a pizza is beautiful at the moment you want it most. — J. Ryan Stradal

Ruta Skadi was four hundred and sixteen years old, with all the pride and knowledge of an adult witch queen. She was wiser by far than any short-lived human, but she had not the slightest idea of how like a child she seemed beside these ancient beings. Nor did she know how far their awareness spread out beyond her like filamentary tentacles to the remotest corners of universes she had never dreamed of; nor that she saw them as human-formed only because her eyes expected to. If she were to perceive their true form, they would seem more like architecture than organism, like huge structures composed of intelligence and feeling.
But they expected nothing else: she was very young. — Philip Pullman

Many a night that summer she left Dr. Archie's office with a desire to run and run about those quiet streets until she wore out her shoes, or wore out the streets themselves; when her chest ached and it seemed as if her heart were spreading all over the desert. When she went home, it was not to go to sleep. She used to drag her mattress beside her low window and lie awake for a long while, vibrating with excitement, as a machine vibrates from speed. Life rushed in upon her through that window
or so it seemed. In reality, of course, life rushes from within, not from without. There is no work of art so big or so beautiful that it was not once all contained in some youthful body, like this one which lay on the floor in the moonlight, pulsing with ardor and anticipation. It was on such nights that Thea Kronborg learned the thing that old Dumas meant when he told the Romanticists that to make a drama he needed but one passion and four walls. — Willa Cather

Abra DeMadrigal didn't look young enough to be my sister anymore. Her sorrow weighed her down and aged her. She was still beautiful, but she looked very far away. No wonder our people had raven eyes, so distant, so sad. No matter how wise she was, my mother looked like a woman who hadn't truely believed how much evil there was in our world. Not until this moment. — Alice Hoffman

Nadya Zelenin and her mother had returned from a performance of Eugene Onegin at the theatre. Going into her room, the girl swiftly threw off her dress and let her hair down. Then she quickly sat at the table in her petticoat and white bodice to write a letter like Tatyana's.
'I love you,' she wrote, 'but you don't love me, you don't love me!'
Having written this, she laughed.
She was only sixteen and had never loved anyone yet. She knew that Gorny (an army officer) and Gruzdyov (a student) were both in love with her, but now, after the opera, she wanted to doubt their love. To be unloved and miserable: what an attractive idea! There was something beautiful, touching and romantic about A loving B when B wasn't interested in A. Onegin was attractive in not loving at all, while Tatyana was enchanting because she loved greatly. Had they loved equally and been happy they might have seemed boring.
("After The Theatre") — Anton Chekhov

If I'd known you'd look so beautiful, I would've gotten dressed up," Loki teased when Finn and Thomas brought him into the War Room. Finn shoved him into a seat unnecessarily hard,but Loki didn't protest.
"Don't get familiar with the Princess, Duncant told him,giving him a stony look.
"My apologies," Loki said. "I wouldn't want to get familiar with anyone."
Loki looked about the room. Duncan, Finn, Thomas, Tove,the Chancellor, and I were the ones set to meet Sara. The rest of the house was on standby, should we need them,but we didn't want to look like we were ambushing Sara when she arrived.
"Did you change your mind and decide to execute me?" Loki asked,looking us over. "Because you all look like you're going to a funeral."
"Not now," I said, fidgeting with my bracelet and watching the clock.
"Then when,Princess?" Loki asked. "Because we only have about fifteen minutes until I leave."
I rolled my eyes and ignored him. — Amanda Hocking

He was beautiful, like looking at a favorite piece of artwork. Not something one can own, but something in a faraway museum, where she would have to go halfway around the world, push through crowds on people, just to catch a glimpse of his unreal splendor. — Caroline Hanson

We shouldn't do this," he said again as he looked up into her eyes. "But, God, I want to. I just ... " He closed his eyes, exhaled hard. "Pheeb. I'm a bad bet. There's no future here. I know this feels big, this thing between us, right now it feels huge - and shh, don't make a dick joke, I'm serious. But it's not going to feel as big or special tomorrow, or, shit, even later tonight. I mean, yeah, I can make you feel good. I know it. And God knows you can make me ... Jesus, you're so beautiful, I just - "
She stopped him there, again, with a kiss, and just like that, it was as if something snapped. — Suzanne Brockmann

He had never been in love. He had not known what it would feel like. He understood what the term meant, but his life had not allowed for exploring its possibilities. There had been few he had really loved. His parents; Michael. That was it. And that was love of a different kind. Less intense, less hungry. What he felt for Simralin went so far beyond anything manageable that it shocked him. He could tell himself it was because he had found her beautiful in a way that transcended anything he had ever known. But his attraction to her was a response to so much more. To her self-confidence and way of speaking. To her smile and the quirky way she lifted one eyebrow when she was amused. To the way she carried herself. To the way she looked at him. — Terry Brooks

Is anyone anywhere happy? No, not unless they are living in a dream or in an artifice that they or someone else has made. For a time I was lulled in the arms of a blind organism with breasts full of champagne and nipples made of caviar. I thought she was true, and that the true was the beautiful. But the true is the ugly mixed up everywhere, like a peck of dirt scattered through your life. The true is that there is no security, no artifice to stop the unsavory changes, the rat race, the death unwish - the winged chariot, the horns and the motors, the Devil in the clock. Love is a desperate artifice to take the place of those two original parents who turned out not to be omnisciently right gods, but a rather pedestrian pair of muddled suburbanites who, no matter how bumbling they tried, never could quite understand how or why you grew up to your 21st birthday. — Sylvia Plath

Kessa ran her fingers over her stomach. Flat. But was it flat enough? Not quite. She still had some way to go. Just to be safe, she told herself. Still, it was nice the way her pelvic bones rose like sharp hills on either side of her stomach. I love bones. Bones are beautiful. — Steven Levenkron

When I was younger all kinds of people talked to me," she
said. "Told me all sorts of things. Fascinating stories, beautiful,
strange stories. But past a certain point nobody talked to me
any more. No one. Not my husband, my child, my friends ...
no one. Like there was nothing left in the world to talk about.
Sometimes I feel like my body's turning invisible, like you can
see right through me. — Haruki Murakami

She couldn't quite see herself in it. When they were done, I read the Shakespeare sonnet that begins "Fear no more the heat o' the Sun," partly because it was appropriate to the occasion and one of the most beautiful poems in the language, but also because I hoped it might hide from my loved ones the fact that I myself had nothing to say, that while part of me was here with them on this beloved shore, another part was wandering, as it had been for months, in a barren, uninhabited landscape not unlike the one in my dream. I realized I'd felt like this for a while. Though life had gone on since my mother's death - Kate had gotten married, I'd finally published another book and gone on tour with it - some sort of internal-pause button had been pushed, allowing another part of me, one I'd specifically kept sequestered to deal with my mother, to fall silent. Since her death, Barbara and I had gone through all her things and settled her affairs, but we'd barely spoken of her. — Richard Russo

Wendy Belle wasn't the type of model foreign princes married. Yes, tall and graceful, but she didn't radiate a Grace Kelly-like cold beauty. Her lips were too sensuous for that, her eyes too mysterious. Her face was beautiful and perfect in its own way. More than beautiful - interesting. She was the type of woman a man could look at for a lifetime and not get bored. — Dana Marton

No, no, it's not me, it's them - that old time that I've tried to have live in me. These were just men, unimportant evidently or they wouldn't have been 'unknown'; but they died for the most beautiful thing in the world - the dead South. You see," she continued, her voice still husky, her eyes glistening with tears, "people have these dreams they fasten onto things, and I've always grown up with that dream. It was so easy because it was all dead and there weren't any disillusions comin' to me. I've tried in a way to live up to those past standards of noblesse oblige - there's just the last remnants of it, you know, like the roses of an old garden dying all round us - streaks of strange courtliness and chivalry in some of these boys an' stories I used to hear from a Confederate soldier who lived next door, and a few old darkies. Oh, Harry, there was something, there was something! I couldn't ever make you understand but it was there. — F Scott Fitzgerald

But Mrs. Meany, see, the women went on, leaning forward, despite how her heart was broken, pulled herself together, anyway, to put on a good face for the rest of the family at home. And she went back, Sunday after Sunday, right up until the Sunday before she died. Mrs. Meany put her beautiful love - a mother's love - against the terrible scenes that brewed like sewage in that poor girl's troubled mind. She persevered, she baked her cakes, she hauled herself (the goiter swinging) on and off the ferry, and she sat, brokenhearted, holding her daughter's hand, even as Lucy shouted her terrible words, proving to anyone with eyes to see that a mother's love was a beautiful, light, relentless thing that the devil could not diminish. — Alice McDermott

She was also damn cute. Not beautiful or stunningly pretty, but she was cuter than any girl with that much attitude had a right to be, and somehow the bouquet of flowers that colored her skin in every shape and variety seemed like it belonged there. — Jay Crownover

She could not explain or quite understand that it wasn't altogether jealousy she felt, it was rage. And not because she couldn't shop like that or dress like that. It was because that was what girls were supposed to be like. That was what men - people, everybody - thought they should be like. Beautiful, treasured, spoiled, selfish, pea-brained. That was what a girl should be, to be fallen in love with. Then she would become a mother and she'd be all mushily devoted to her babies. Not selfish anymore, but just as pea-brained. Forever. — Alice Munro

He turned, picked up a bundle he'd left propped against the steps, and, grinning, held it out. It was a beautiful bunch of red roses, tied with an expensive silk ribbon. "Here, I got you a present. It's to celebrate." "Gareth - " she shook her head and looked at him in mock exasperation - "if you're going to start being frugal, you can't be wasting money on buying me flowers. Money should be spent on necessities!" He grinned. "Do you like them?" "Of course I do, but that's not the point - " "I said, do you like them?" "Well, yes, but - " "Then they are a necessity. Now, go fetch Charlotte and let's get out of London before the neighborhood awakes, shall we?" He gazed down at his humble clothes with a mixture of amusement and ruefulness. "I don't want to give those miserable old gits anything more to talk about than they already have." ~~~~ — Danelle Harmon

She was one of those women of good family who no longer exist, elegant, distinguished, and haughty, whose pallor and thinness seem to say, 'I am conquered by the era, like all my breed. I am dying, but I despise you,' and - devil take me! - plebeian as I am, and though it is not very philosophical , I cannot help finding that beautiful. — Jules Barbey D'Aurevilly

Meg Ryan is a beautiful and courageous woman. I grieve the loss of her companionship but I've not lost the friendship. We talk all the time and that was what our connection was about. She has a wonderful mind and we just like a chat. — Russell Crowe

But there she was, standing next to his mother, so beautiful, so radiant that he could not see anyone else.
Suddenly the rest of the world seemed like such a chore. He didn't want to be here at this dance, with people he didn't want to talk to and messages he didn't particularly wish to deliver. He didn't want to dance with young ladies he didn't know, and he didn't want to make polite conversation with people he did. He just wanted Billie, and he wanted her all to himself.
He forgot about Tallywhite. He forgot about pease, porridge, and pudding, and he stalked across the room with such single-minded purpose that the crowds seemed to melt from his path.
And somehow, amazingly, the rest of the world had not yet noticed her. She was so beautiful, so uncommonly alive and real in this room full of waxen dolls. She would not go undiscovered for long.
But not yet. Soon he would have to fight the throngs of eager young gentlemen, but for now, she was still his alone. — Julia Quinn

She was beautiful, but not like those girls in the magazines. She was beautiful, for the way she thought. She was beautiful, for the sparkle in her eyes when she talked about something she loved. She was beautiful, for her ability to make other people smile, even if she was sad. No, she wasn't beautiful for something as temporary as her looks. She was beautiful, deep down to her soul. She is beautiful. — F Scott Fitzgerald

Search your heart. He's there, Kate. You can ignore Him, try to run and hide from Him, even convince yourself that He's not there, but He promised us that he would never leave or forsake us." He tipped his head to the side. "Kind of like how you promised not to leave Maggie when she was going through labor. Maggie still had to go through it. You couldn't take her pain away, but you were there to hold her hand, to encourage her, to make sure she knew she wasn't alone, and when it was all said and done, something beautiful came out of what she endured. — Jen Stephens

He had a wild yellow beard and long, tangled hair that stood out from his head in a way that made it seem too large for his shoulders, though they were twice the width of mine. But these were not the things I noticed first. Nor, I think, the things that anyone would notice first. Before anything else, I saw his eyes: They were huge, and yellow as gold. And after that, I saw the way he moved. Cim Glowing is beautiful, and walks with liquid grace; but sometimes she looks clumsy beside him. I think I had guessed who he was before she called his name. "Ketin," she said, and raised the endieva wand as though to strike, backing away until her shoulders were against the wall. "Yes, Ketin," the bearded man said. His voice was like a storm five kilometers off. — Gene Wolfe