Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.

To own beauty is the first lie of it.

[…] the great thing about this life of ours is that you can be someone different to everybody.

Stupid women were lured into it and assured they would become young and beautiful if they let themselves be pummeled and pounded and smeared with sticky creams, and have their faces lifted and their stomachs flattened. They paid a lot of money to Madame Olympia, who would put a little bit of magic into the...

I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions.

There is no deeper reality. The water at the bottom is the same as the water at the top.

All he ever knew of her was who he saw every day. All I am is who I am every day. All anyone is to anyone is a series of days.

Los Angeles is a town where status is all and status is only given to success. Dukes and millionaires and playboys by the dozen may arrive and be glad-handed for a time, but they are unwise if they choose to live there because the town is, perhaps even creditably, committed to recognising only professional success,...

People who need to bully you are the easiest to push around.

So may the outward shows be least themselves:The world is still deceived with ornament.In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt,But, being seasoned with a gracious voice,Obscures the show of evil? In religion,What damned error, but some sober browWill bless it and approve it with a text,Hiding the grossness with fair ornament?There is no vice...

But above all, in order to be, never try to seem.

I remembered my little brother, Allyn, had appeared so innocent and angelic when he slept–similar to Kerrick. It must be a survival tactic. If Allyn hadn’t looked so sweet, we would have killed him while he slept. He had been pure evil when he was awake–similar to Kerrick.

I don’t know how, or whether it is even possible to predict what the world will look like the next day. I simply have to close my eyes, and wait until tomorrow in order to find out.

As a general rule, a reputation is built on manner as much as on achievement.

It’s not: I jumped in, and it was cold. No. It was cold, and I jumped in. Always arrange a sentence so you appear to be fearless, when in fact you are far less than fearless—you are clueless.

Look on beauty,And you shall see ’tis purchased by the weight;Which therein works a miracle in nature,Making them lightest that wear most of it:So are those crisped snaky golden locksWhich make such wanton gambols with the wind,Upon supposed fairness, often knownTo be the dowry of a second head,The skull that bred them in the sepulchre.Thus...

Character is like a tree and reputation its shadow. The shadow is what we think it is and the tree is the real thing.

Social media has infected the world with a sickening virus called vanity.

A clown needn’t be the same out of the ring as he has to be when he’s in it. If you look at photographs of clowns when they’re just being ordinary men, they’ve got quite sad faces.

To see and live from a higher context, we must begin to see that change is not threatening, it just is. It is the movement of Life around the constant and permanent presence of our Higher Self, our God Within. It is seeing and living from the perspective that everything is perfect and was created...

When a girl feels that she’s perfectly groomed and dressed she can forget that part of her. That’s charm

She was still glad she looked like Scully. He wasn’t pretty either, but pretty people weren’t the kind you need. Pretty people saw themselves in the mirror and were either too happy or too sad. People like Billie just shrugged and didn’t care. She didn’t want to turn into anyone pretty. Anyway, she had scars...

Is that why you’ve been pushing me away? Because of how you look? […] I waited for you my whole life. Yearned for you my whole life. After Tersa told me you were coming, I spent seven hundred years searching for you[….] I never gave a damn what you looked like–tall, short, fat, thin, plain,...

You have to look at a thing long enough for it to really show itself to you…

You’ll never make it out there. You weren’t made for South Pole adventures.” Flora gave her an icy look. “I think I know by now what I was made for.

What would it be like to live as a butterfly, being admired by the world for your color and beauty and grace? What would it be like to live as a spider, having people shriek and jump and throw a shoe at the very notice of you?I have tasted both―looks of desire and repulsion.How sad...

Did anyone care for poor Cinderella until her fairy godmother took her in hand? Did anyone look beyond the ragged clothes and sooty face? Did anyone see the unshed tears and the poor, tired face?Obviously not. Appearances matter.

You don’t know how shallow you are, or how narcissistic, until you find yourself in danger of acquiring a facial scar.”On the plus side, it’s so situated as potentially to make me look tough and worldly. On the downside, I’m never kissing my dog again.

What treaty is it that finally separates those two territories, the hard resolve of our exteriors and the terrible disaster on our insides?

As she grew older, Maddy discovered that she had disappointed almost everyone. An awkward girl with a sullen mouth, a curtain of hair, and a tendency to slouch, she had neither Mae’s sweet nature nor sweet face. Her eyes were rather beautiful, but few people ever noticed this, and it was widely believed Maddy was...

What do I care how ‘e looks? I am good-looking enough for both of us, I theenk! All these scars show is zat my husband is brave!

I saw you before. All your flaws, your imperfections. Your body’s going to a lot of trouble to hide something, something inside of you. It must be very precious.

In all aspects of life, we take on a part and an appearance to seem to be what we wish to be–and thus the world is merely composed of actors.

Another vampire pushed her way through the crowd to stand at hisside—a pretty blue-haired Asian girl in a silver foil skirt. Clary wondered if there were any ugly vampires, or maybe any fat ones. Maybe they didn’t make vampires out of ugly people. Or maybe ugly people just didn’t want to live forever.

People who say you are ugly, may be true, because to them, you look like a monster. People who say you are beautiful, may also be true, because to them, you look like an angel.

I’ll say this, Arik: the old man’s warning proved to be true – things are not always what they seem. She was no young lady -” “If it’s the demon you speak of,” interjected Rith, as she stepped back into the ruin, Lyssa following after, “she was not even a toothless old hag.

Too many people spend money they haven’t earned, to buy things they don’t want, to impress people that they don’t like.

She had told Kazan that she was bored with the roles she was playing because so many of them had been basically the same kind of empty-headed characterization. She wanted nothing ore than to challenge herself with more complex parts–and also wanted others to think of her as being more than a caricature….Anytime she had...

Appearances, beauty, value and life have their unique mysteries and essence. I prefer that essence to be breathing with humility, honesty, compassion, respect and a timeless love.

I knew if there was ever a girl who could love me, warts and all, it would be the girl who went to the pound and adopted the ugliest, meanest piece of crap she could find.” My heart swelled, my smile following. “All because she believed that under every rough exterior was a soul begging...

The greatest weakness of all is the great fear of appearing weak.

Things are often exactly as they seem. Confusing isn’t it.

But to appear happy when I am so miserable — Oh! who can require it?

When we are able to look beyond appearances and to behold that which we truly are, we recognize that our essence is interwoven with the divine and that we exist as one of its expressions.

Sometimes the dustiest cover hides the best book. Sometimes the best cup is chipped.

real world”. Refuse normalcy. Beauty is everywhere, love is endless, and joy bleeds from our everyday existence. Embrace it. I love all of you, all my friends, family, and community. I am ceaselessly grateful from the bottom of my heart for everyone. The only thing I can ask of you is to stay free of...

Hear what I say, and not how I look.”~R. Alan Woods [2012]

Appearances are not reality; but they often can be a convincing alternative to it. You can control appearances most of the time, but facts are what they are. When the facts are too sharp, you can craft a cheerful version of the situation and cover the facts the way that you can covered a battered...

When it comes to current attitudes about surgery, the practice of dismissing the cultural context and rationalizing it as individual betterment “flattens the terrain of power relations.” In other words, we can talk about doing it for us until our high-end lipstick flakes off, but we should also keep in mind that we probably wouldn’t...

The gravel road widened into a large turnaround where three similar looking and designed brothels sat waiting for customers. They were called Sheila’s Front Porch, Tawny’s High Five Ranch and Miss Delilah’s House of Holies.”Nice,” Rachel said as we surveyed the scene. “why are these places always named after women — as if women actually...