She'd always been a little contemptuous of beauty, as though it was something you had to trade away some other vital thing for.

Crippled things are always more beautiful. It's the flaw that brings out beauty.

They wore their strange beauty like war paint.

You can spit on a rose, but it's still a rose.

One fine day, in the middle of the night, two dead boys got up to fight. Back to back they faced each other. They pulled out their swords and shot one another. One deaf cop, on the beat heard the noise, and came and shot the two dead boys.

Once someone's hurt you, it's harder to relax around them, harder to think of them as safe to love. But it doesn't stop you from wanting them.