A couple of them were school beauty-queen pretty while a few were that more real-looking type. A realer kind of pretty.

Not a beauty queen. Not one of those. You know the ones. She was real.

Sometimes people are beautiful.
Not in looks.
Not in what they say.
Just in what they are.

And when we finally stood up and turned to face the world, I could feel something climbing through me. I could feel it on its hands and knees inside me, rising up, rising up - and I smiled.
I smiled, thinking, The hunger, because I knew it all too well.
The hunger.
The desire.
Then, slowly, as we walked on, I felt the beauty of it, and I could taste it, like words inside my mouth.

In your 20s you can be pretty, but you don't accomplish real beauty until you find wisdom and depth.

There is real beauty in my eyes when I lose my mind.