Maybe we don't have the same definition of about what's beautiful. So define it. Define true beauty.

Teachers wondered why I didn't speak up more in class. Why would I when I knew how precarious words could be, how betraying they were, how vulnerable they made you?

You raze the old to raise the new.

Silence, too, can be torture.

There is real comfort in being quiet.

Physical beauty wasn't the same as True Beauty, any more than pretty ugly meant truly ugly or Magnetic North meant True North.

I just told Max flatly, "I had laser surgery last week to lighten my birthmark," as if it was no big deal. Oh yeah?" he said. Unexpectedly, Max swiveled around, yanked his pants down. The last thing I thought I had wanted to see tonight was Merc walking out the door. I was wrong. It was this stranger's rear end. "Please don't tell me this is one of those stripping telegrams?