“
The beauty of a woman is not in a facial mole,but true beauty in a Woman is reflected in her soul. It is the caring that she lovingly gives, the passion that she knows.
”
”
Audrey Hepburn
“
But Mole stood still a moment, held in thought. As one wakened suddenly from a beautiful dream, who struggles to recall it, but can recapture nothing but a dim sense of the beauty in it, the beauty! Till that, too, fades away in its turn, and the dreamer bitterly accepts the hard, cold waking and all its penalties.
”
”
Kenneth Grahame (The Wind in the Willows)
“
Boys are just boys after all, but sometimes girls really seem to be the turn of a pale wrist, or the sudden jut of a hip, or a clutch of very dark hair falling across a freckled forehead. I'm not saying that's what they really are. I'm just saying sometimes it seems that way, and that those details (a thigh mole, a full face flush, a scar the precise shape and size of a cashew nut) are so many hooks waiting to land you.
”
”
Zadie Smith
“
Lovers
Don't tell all of their
Secrets.
They might
Count each other's moles
That reside in the shy
Regions,
Then keep that tally strictly
To themselves.
God and I
Have signe a contract
To be even more intimate than
That!
Though a clause
Mentions
Something about not drawing detailed maps
To all His beautiful
Laughing
Moles.
”
”
The Gift
“
Pied Beauty—
"
Glory be to God for dappled things--
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced--fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise Him.
”
”
Gerard Manley Hopkins (The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins)
“
Your dream is the mole
behind your ear,
that chip in your
front tooth,
your freckles.
It's the thing that makes
you special,
but not the thing that makes
you great.
The courage in trying,
the passion in living,
and the acknowledgement
and appreciation of
the beauty happening around
you does that.
”
”
Jason Reynolds (For Every One)
“
I keep having the urge to cross my hands over my chest, to cover up my breasts, to hide. I'm suddenly aware of how pale I look in the sunshine, and how many moles I have spotting up and down my chest, and I just know he's looking at me thinking i'm wrong or deformed. But the he breathes, 'Beautiful' and when his eyes meet mine I know that he really, truly means it.
”
”
Lauren Oliver (Delirium (Delirium, #1))
“
There is no better people-watching than at the airport: the whole world packed into such a tight space, moving fast with all their essentials in their rolling bags. And what caught my attention, as I took a few breaths and lay my eyes on the crowds, were all the imperfections. Everybody had them. Every single person that walked past me had some kind of flaw. Bushy eyebrows, moles, flared nostrils, crooked teeth, crows'-feet, hunched backs, dowagers' humps, double chins, floppy earlobes, nose hairs, potbellies, scars, nicotine stains, upper arm fat, trick knees, saddlebags, collapsed arches, bruises, warts, puffy eyes, pimples. Nobody was perfect. Not even close. And everybody had wrinkles from smiling and squinting and craning their necks. Everybody had marks on their bodies from years of living - a trail of life left on them, evidence of all the adventures and sleepless nights and practical jokes and heartbreaks that had made them who they were.
In that moment, I suddenly loved us all the more for our flaws, for being broken and human, for being embarrassed and lonely, for being hopeful or tired or disappointed or sick or brave or angry. For being who we were, for making the world interesting. It was a good reminder that the human condition is imperfection. And that's how it's supposed to be.
”
”
Katherine Center (Everyone is Beautiful)
“
Didn't you have some big deal last night?" Peabody asked her.
"Yeah, in East Washington. Roarke had this dinner / dance thing for some fancy charity. Save the moles or something. Enough food to feed every sidewalk sleeper on the Lower East Side for a year."
"Gee, that's tough on you. I bet you had to get all dressed up in some beautiful gown, shuttle down on Roarke's private transpo, and choke down champagne."
Eve only lifted a brow at Peabody's dust-dry tone. "Yeah, that's about it." They both knew the glamorous side of Eve's life since Roarke had come into it was both a puzzlement and a frustration to her. "And then I had to dance with Roarke. A lot."
"Was he wearing a tux?" Peabody had seen Roarke in a tux. The image of it was etched in her mind like acid on glass.
"Oh yeah." Until, Eve mused, they'd gotten home and she'd ripped it off of him. He looked every bit as good out of a tux as in one.
"Man." Peabody closed her eyes, indulged herself with a visualization technique she'd learned at her Free-Ager parents' knees. "Man," she repeated.
"You know, a lot of women would get pissed off at having their husband star in their aide's purient little fantasies."
"But you're bigger than that, Lieutenant. I like that about you.
”
”
J.D. Robb (Conspiracy in Death (In Death, #8))
“
The beauty ideal is always a youthful one. This is partly simple realism. The young are beautiful. The whole lot of ’em. The older I get, the more clearly I see that and enjoy it. But it gets harder and harder to enjoy facing the mirror. Who is that old lady? Where is her waist? I got resigned, sort of, to losing my dark hair and getting all this limp grey stuff instead, but now am I going to lose even that and end up all pink scalp? I mean, enough already. Is that another mole or am I turning into an Appaloosa? How large can a knuckle get before it becomes a kneejoint? I don’t want to see, I don’t want to know. And yet I look at men and women my age and older, and their scalps and knuckles and spots and bulges, though various and interesting, don’t affect what I think of them. Some of these people I consider to be very beautiful, and others I don’t. For old people, beauty doesn’t come free with the hormones, the way it does for the young. It has to do with bones. It has to do with who the person is. More and more clearly it has to do with what shines through those gnarly faces and bodies.
”
”
Ursula K. Le Guin (The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination)
“
Close up she saw that Molina's eyes were beautiful and dark thik eye lashed the way Lisette's mother tried to make hers with a mascara brush. The skin beneath Molina's eyes were soft and bruised looking and on her throat were tiny dark moles. It did not seem right that a woman like Molina, who you could tell was a mother-her body was a mother's body for sure, wide hips-could be a cop;it did not seem right that this person was carrying a gun, in a holster attached to leather belt, and that she could use it, if she wanted to.
”
”
Joyce Carol Oates
“
Marks," he said, his voice uneven, "you are not a perfect woman."
'I'm aware of that," she said.
"You have an evil temper, you're as blind as a mole, you're a deplorable poet, and frankly, your French accent could use some work." Supporting himself on his elbows, Leo took her face in his hands. "But when I put those things together with the rest of you, it makes you into the most perfectly imperfect woman I've ever known."
Absurdly pleased, she smiled up into his face.
"You are beautiful beyond words," Leo went on. "You are kind, amusing, and passionate. You also have a keen intellect, but I'm willing to overlook that.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Married by Morning (The Hathaways, #4))
“
You are beautiful. You have always been beautiful, and you need to believe that you are. Even if the magazines don’t appreciate your wide hips or your glowing brown skin; dark and soft like honey, learn how to love yourself. This body is the only home you’ll have in this lifetime, so my darling, learn how to embrace every scar, freckle and mole. You are made out of the same atoms that formed Frida Kahlo and Picasso. You are art and you need to have faith in that.
”
”
Thushena Ganesh
“
THE FORTRESS
Under the pink quilted covers
I hold the pulse that counts your blood.
I think the woods outdoors
are half asleep,
left over from summer
like a stack of books after a flood,
left over like those promises I never keep.
On the right, the scrub pine tree
waits like a fruit store
holding up bunches of tufted broccoli.
We watch the wind from our square bed.
I press down my index finger --
half in jest, half in dread --
on the brown mole
under your left eye, inherited
from my right cheek: a spot of danger
where a bewitched worm ate its way through our soul
in search of beauty. My child, since July
the leaves have been fed
secretly from a pool of beet-red dye.
And sometimes they are battle green
with trunks as wet as hunters' boots,
smacked hard by the wind, clean
as oilskins. No,
the wind's not off the ocean.
Yes, it cried in your room like a wolf
and your pony tail hurt you. That was a long time ago.
The wind rolled the tide like a dying
woman. She wouldn't sleep,
she rolled there all night, grunting and sighing.
Darling, life is not in my hands;
life with its terrible changes
will take you, bombs or glands,
your own child at
your breast, your own house on your own land.
Outside the bittersweet turns orange.
Before she died, my mother and I picked those fat
branches, finding orange nipples
on the gray wire strands.
We weeded the forest, curing trees like cripples.
Your feet thump-thump against my back
and you whisper to yourself. Child,
what are you wishing? What pact
are you making?
What mouse runs between your eyes? What ark
can I fill for you when the world goes wild?
The woods are underwater, their weeds are shaking
in the tide; birches like zebra fish
flash by in a pack.
Child, I cannot promise that you will get your wish.
I cannot promise very much.
I give you the images I know.
Lie still with me and watch.
A pheasant moves
by like a seal, pulled through the mulch
by his thick white collar. He's on show
like a clown. He drags a beige feather that he removed,
one time, from an old lady's hat.
We laugh and we touch.
I promise you love. Time will not take away that.
”
”
Anne Sexton (Selected Poems)
“
I read that beauty has historically demanded replication. We make more of anything we find aesthetically pleasing, whether it’s a vase, a painting, a chalice, a poem. We reproduce it in order to keep it, extend it through space and time. To gaze at what pleases—a fresco, a peach-red mountain range, a boy, the mole on his jaw—is, in itself, replication—the image prolonged in the eye, making more of it, making it last. Staring into the mirror, I replicate myself into a future where I might not exist. And yes, it was not pizza bagels, all those years ago, that I wanted from Gramoz, but replication. Because his offering extended me into something worthy of generosity, and therefore seen. It was that very moreness that I wanted to prolong, to return to.
”
”
Ocean Vuong (On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous)
“
The dude feels right fatherly. Takes her down to the crick to wash the underground off of her. Just can't bring himself to shoot her while she's filthy and starving. There's time. Offers her a cake of French-milled soap he brought all the way out from Chicago. Smells like gardenias if you know your flowers, and the dude does. Snow White knows something's skewed but she grabs it, strips off like it's nothing and climbs in the water. She don't shiver even though that stream has to be as cold as a wagon tire. The miner's crud comes off her in black ribbons. The duded watches another girl come out of the blind mole-skin she was walking around it. This one has muscles like a mountain cat and a kind of pretty he doesn't know what to do with. For fairness he'd take her stepmother six days and twice on Sunday. The beauty Snow White's got has nothing to do with him. She's scarred up and suspicious an shameless. Her pretty's not for him. It's like saying the moon's got a fine figure on her. Maybe true, but what good is that to a man?
”
”
Catherynne M. Valente (Six-Gun Snow White)
“
Tom felt his darkness. His father was beautiful and clever, his mother was short and mathematically sure. Each of his brothers and sisters had looks or gifts or fortune. Tom loved all of them passionately, but he felt heavy and earth-bound. He climbed ecstatic mountains and floundered in the rocky darkness between the peaks. He had spurts of bravery but they were bracketed in battens of cowardice.
Samuel said that Tom was quavering over greatness, trying to decide whether he could take the cold responsibility. Samuel knew his son’s quality and felt the potential of violence, and it frightened him, for Samuel had no violence—even when he hit Adam Trask with his fist he had no violence. And the books that came into the house, some of them secretly—well, Samuel rode lightly on top of a book and he balanced happily among ideas the way a man rides white rapids in a canoe. But Tom got into a book, crawled and groveled between the covers, tunneled like a mole among the thoughts, and came up with the book all over his face and hands.
John Steinbeck. East of Eden (Kindle Locations 4766-4770). Viking.
”
”
John Steinbeck
“
Perhaps it may be that what they find fault with may be moles, that sometimes heighten the beauty of the face that bears them; and so I say very great is the risk to which he who prints a book exposes himself, for of all impossibilities the greatest is to write one that will satisfy and please all readers.
”
”
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (Don Quixote)
“
...suddenly he stood by the edge of a full-fed river. Never in his life had he seen a river before— this sleek, sinuous, full-bodied animal, chasing and chuckling, gripping things with a gurgle and leaving them with a laugh, to fling itself on fresh playmates that shook themselves free, and were caught and held again. All was a-shake and a-shiver— glints and gleams and sparkles, rustle and swirl, chatter and bubble. The Mole was bewitched, entranced, fascinated.
”
”
Kenneth Grahame (The Wind in the Willows - Illustrated)
“
Then Bacchus and Silenus and the Maenads began a dance, far wilder than the dance of the trees; not merely a dance of fun and beauty (though it was that too) but a magic dance of plenty, and where their hands touched, and where their feet fell, the feast came into existence- sides of roasted meat that filled the grove with delicious smells, and wheaten cakes and oaten cakes, honey and many-colored sugars and cream as thick as porridge and as smooth as still water, peaches, nectarines, pomegranates, pears, grapes, straw-berries, raspberries- pyramids and cataracts of fruit. Then, in great wooden cups and bowls and mazers, wreathed with ivy, came the wines; dark, thick ones like syrups of mulberry juice, and clear red ones like red jellies liquefied, and yellow wines and green wines and yellow-green and greenish-yellow.
But for the tree people different fare was provided. When Lucy saw Clodsley Shovel and his moles scuffling up the turf in various places (when Bacchus had pointed out to them) and realized that the trees were going to eat earth it gave her rather a shudder. But when she saw the earths that were actually brought to them she felt quite different. They began with a rich brown loam that looked almost exactly like chocolate; so like chocolate, in fact, that Edmund tried a piece of it, but he did not find it all nice. When the rich loam had taken the edge off their hunger, the trees turned to an earth of the kind you see in Somerset, which is almost pink. They said it was lighter and sweeter. At the cheese stage they had a chalky soil, and then went on to delicate confections of the finest gravels powdered with choice silver sand. They drank very little wine, and it made the Hollies very talkative: for the most part they quenched their thirst with deep draughts of mingled dew and rain, flavored with forest flowers and the airy taste of the thinnest clouds.
”
”
C.S. Lewis (Prince Caspian (Chronicles of Narnia, #2))
“
I read that beauty has historically demanded replication. We make more of anything we find aesthetically pleasing, whether it’s a vase, a painting, a chalice, a poem. We reproduce it in order to keep it, extend it through space and time. To gaze at what pleases—a fresco, a peach-red mountain range, a boy, the mole on his jaw—is, in itself, replication—the image prolonged in the eye, making more of it, making it last. Staring into the mirror, I replicate myself into a future where I might not exist.
”
”
Ocean Vuong (On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous)
“
And I remembered, in a sudden jolt of recall, that my mother had traveled to Hong Kong alone, one winter, when I was a teenager. The city was renowned among the Chinese-American communities for expert, cheap cosmetic procedures, and she was there to get the moles and beauty marks removed from her face. Her sisters used to call her a spotted leopard. When she returned, however, there were white spots on her face where the moles had been. She was still marked in the places she desired to be unmarked.
”
”
Ling Ma (Severance)
“
I read that beauty has historically demanded replication. We make more of anything we find aesthetically pleasing, whether it's a vase, a painting, a chalice, a poem. We reproduce it in order to keep it, extend it through space and time. To gaze at what pleases -- a fresco, a peach-red mountain range, a boy, the mole on his jaw, -- is, in itself, replication -- the image prolonged in the eye, making more of it, making it last. Staring into the mirror, I replicate myself into a future where I might not exist.
...Because his offering extended me into something worthy of generosity, and therefore seen. It was that very moreness that I wanted to prolong, to return to.
”
”
Ocean Vuong (On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous)
“
Megan Meade’s Guide to the McGowan Boys
Entry One
Observation #1: When they’re beautiful, they know they’re beautiful.
Like the second-to-oldest one, Evan. He’s a senior. He is perfection personified. And he knows it. You can tell because he just sort of smiles knowingly when you gape at him. Not that I’ve been gaping at him. Not at all. Anyway, too soon yet to tell if it negatively affects his behavior. (Like Mike Blukowsi and his Astrodome-sized ego problem.)
Observation #2: They like skin.
Especially skin they think they’re not necessarily supposed to be seeing. Like the space between your belly tee and your waistband.
Observation #3: They have no problem bringing up events that would mortify me into shamed silence if the roles were reversed.
Like Evan totally brought up the wiffleball bat incident, when if that had happened to me, I’d be wishing on every one of my birthday cakes for everyone to forget it.
Observation #4: They gossip.
Can you believe it? I overheard Finn and Doug in the backyard talking about some girl named Dawn who blew off some guy named Simon for some other guy named Rick for like TWENTY MINUTES! They sounded like those old mole-hair ladies at Sal’s Milkshakes. ‘Member the ones who lectured us for a whole hour that day about how young women shouldn’t wear shorts? Wait, okay, I got sidetracked.
Observation #5: The older ones are so cute with the younger ones.
They were playing ultimate Frisbee when I first got here and Evan totally let Caleb and Ian tackle him. It was soooooo cute. **sigh.**
Observation #6: They’re cliquey.
I mean, eye-rolling, secret-handshake, don’t-talk-to-us-unless-you’ve-got-an-X-and-a-Y cliquey. Very schooled in the art of the freeze-out.
Observation #7: They have no sense of personal space.
I need a lock on my door. STAT.
Observation #8: Boys are icky.
Do not even get me started on the state of the bathroom. I’m thinking of calling in a haz-mat team. Seriously.
Observation #9: They have really freaky things going on down there.
Yeah, I don’t think I’m ready to elaborate on that one yet.
Observation #10: They know how to make enemies.
Big time.
”
”
Kate Brian (Megan Meade's Guide to the McGowan Boys)
“
Yes, it’s okay to be afraid. It’s okay to hesitate before plunging from your comfort zone.
It’s okay to have scars, pimples, insecurities, moles, cellulite, tremors, debts, redness, regrets, loneliness and uncertainty.
It’s okay to have no idea what you’re doing.
It’s okay to struggle with some things, while enjoying others. It’s okay to find joy in the beauty in life, even after a great loss. It’s okay to change. It’s okay to move on. And it’s okay to fear changing and moving on.
Wherever you are, and whatever you are experiencing, is okay. You didn’t invent the universe and you didn’t invent the human condition.
You don’t need permission to live whatever you’re living, even if it looks and feels different from anyone else’s life around you. And it’s okay to feel like you need that permission anyway.
”
”
Vironika Tugaleva
“
Where do you even start with Cinderella? Let's ignore Cinderella's victim status and total lack of self-determination and head straight for the prince who was, let's face it, a bit of a jerk. Despite being captivated by Cinderella's radiant beauty for half the night, come the cold light of day he has completely forgotten what she looks like and only has her shoe size to go on. Either he was suffering from some sort of early onset Alzheimer's disease or else he was completely off his face during the big ball. the end result is that he goes trawling through the kingdom in some sort of perverted foot-fetish style quest for someone, anyone, who fits the glass slipper. Just how superficial is this guy? What if Cinderella had turned up at the ball looking exactly like she did only with a mole on her face and that had a couple of twelve-centimetre hairs sticking out of it? What if a bearded troll just happened to have the same shoe size as Cinderella? 'Ah, well. Pucker up, bushy cheeks, it's snog time.' And no one ever bothers to question the sheer impracticality of Cinderella's footwear. Glass might be good for many things but it's not exactly malleable in its cooled state. If everyone turned and gaped when Cinderella made her big entrance into the ball, it's only because she'd have come staggering in like a drunken giraffe on rollerblades. Bit of a head turner.
”
”
John Larkin (The Shadow Girl)
“
Dew dampened the grass and shimmered on the apples. From a distance, the blueberry bushes glistened as if encased in frost, and the trees looked as if they had been cloaked in ice.
Walking through the orchards was comforting to Sam, nearly as comforting as baking. There was a precision in both endeavors, which brought a sense of order to the world, and yet each was filled with new surprises and revelations every day.
The trees lined up like hunchback sentinels, seeming to protect the women as they walked the land. The paths between the trees were grassy but worn, showing where tourists and U-Pickers had trod in straight lines before veering left or right. Every so often, the earth had been upended by moles, muddy earthquakes left in the wake of their own underground walks.
"Grandpa hated moles, didn't he?" Sam asked out of the blue.
"With a passion," Willo said, touched that Sam remembered an innocuous fact about her grandfather from long ago.
It was even cooler as the three went deeper into the heart of the orchards, mist dancing in between the rows of trees and the lake glistening beyond like a mirage. It was magical, mysterious, a lost world.
I always feel like I've been transported to the world depicted in Lord of the Rings, Sam thought.
”
”
Viola Shipman (The Recipe Box)
“
… we are not going to add any fresh thrill to the thrill which the loveliness of The Piper at the Gates of Dawn has already given its readers… it seemed clear to me that Rat and Toad, Mole and Badger could only face the footlights with hope f success if they were content to amuse their audiences. There are both beauty and comedy in the book, but the beauty must be left to blossom there, for I, anyhow, shall not attempt to transplant it.
But can one transplant even the comedy? Perhaps it has happened to you, as it has certainly happened to me, that you have tried to explain a fantastic idea to an entirely matter-of-fact person. ‘But they don’t,’ he says, and ‘You can’t,’ and ‘I don’t see why, just because –’ and ‘Even if you assume that –’ and ‘I thought you said just now he hadn’t.’ By this time you have thrown the ink-pot at him, with enough of accuracy, let us hope, to save you from his ultimatum, which is this: ‘However fantastic your assumption, you must work it out logically’ – that is to say, realistically.
To such a mind The Wind in the Willows makes no appeal, for it is not worked out logically. In reading the book, it is necessary to think of Mole, for instance, sometimes as an actual mole, sometimes as such a mole in human clothes, sometimes as a mole grown to human size, sometimes as walking on two legs, sometimes on four. He is a mole, he isn’t a mole. What is he? I don’t know. And, not being a matter-of-fact person, I don’t mind. At least, I do know, and still I don’t mind. He is a fairy, like so many immortal characters in fiction; and, as a fairy, he can do, or be, anything.
But the stage has no place for fairies. There is a horrid realism about the theatre, from which, however hard we try, we can never quite escape. Once we put Mole and his friends on the boards we have to be definite about them. What do they look like?
”
”
A.A. Milne (Toad of Toad Hall)
“
I think the wild is a bit like life — frightening sometimes but beautiful.
”
”
Charlie Mackesy (The Boy the Mole the Fox and the Horse The Animated Story & The Boy the Mole the Fox and the Horse By Charlie Mackesy Collection 2 Books Set)
“
AN INCOMPLETE PORTRAIT OF OUR LOVE
written by: Zaki Ansari
An incomplete portrait of our love
Relic of our relationship
like a poor injured dove
An incomplete portrait of our love
framed with some shabby moments
Hanging on my heart’s wall.
Thirsty for some colors of love
Which are missing at all
I have painted, the shadow of your smile.
I have added Some color of your hair,
I drew some marks of your lips
I spread shine of your eyes
Tried to fill with some of our memories
And with some of our dreams
I Gave a touch of your laughter,
and made the shape of your dimple.
Decorated with the beautiful mole
mole the same as you have on pretty face
but many things are mismade
yet, it is dark, it is fade
Missing a complete part which has been made
That’s You, your love, your presence
And all those beautiful colors
which you took with you when you left
How do I complete without you?
even I have lost myself without you,
Yes I’m breathing, yes I’m living
But that’s not life which spent without you.
you are required, Your touch is needed
to make complete
An incomplete portrait of our love
Relic of our relationship, like a poor injured dove
thirsty for some colors of love
Which are missing at all
Maybe there is no chance to make it whole
Complete or incomplete, happiness or sorrow
tears or laughter, the wounds on the soul
Whatever, but it’s a masterpiece of my life,
that’s all
into the bitter ocean of life
only sweetest thing, I have known,
Even it’s incomplete but it’s my own
An incomplete portrait of our love
Relic of our relationship
like a poor injured dove
”
”
Mohammed Zaki Ansari ("Zaki's Gift Of Love")
“
No, Jeremy,” said Michael solemnly. “If this is what God intended then it is beautiful. The Almighty does not have off days.” “Yeah. Tell that to the duck-billed platypus. Or the naked mole rat.
”
”
Heide Goody (Pigeonwings (Clovenhoof, #2))
“
That beautiful Shirazi Turk, took control and my heart stole,
I'll give Samarkand & Bukhara, for her Hindu beauty mole.
O wine-bearer bring me wine, such wine not found in Heavens
By running brooks, in flowery fields, spend your days and stroll.
Alas, these sweet gypsy clowns, these agitators of our town
Took the patience of my heart, like looting Turks take their toll.
Such unfinished love as ours, the Beloved has no need,
For the Perfect Beauty, frills and adornments play no role.
I came to know Joseph's goodness, that daily would increase
Even the chaste Mistress succumbed to the love she would extol.
Whether profane or even cursed, I'll reply only in praise
Sweetness of tongue and the lips, even bitterness would enthrall.
Heed the advice of the wise, make your most endeared goal,
The fortunate blessed youth, listen to the old wise soul.
Tell tales of song and wine, seek not secrets of the world,
None has found and no-one will, knowledge leaves this riddle whole.
You composed poems and sang, Hafiz, you spent your days well
Venus wedded to your songs, in the firmaments' inverted bowl.
”
”
Ghazals Inspired by Hafiz's Ghazals
“
which mole was shaped like the holy Sign of Life. Now Pharaoh and his house and the priests in every temple, and indeed all Egypt went mad with joy, though there were many who in secret mourned over the sex of the infant, whispering that a man and not a woman should wear the Double Crown. But in public they said nothing, since the story of this child had gone abroad and folk declared that it was sent by the gods, and divine, and that the goddesses, Isis, Nepthys, and Hathor, with Khemu, the Maker of Mankind, were seen in the birth chamber, glowing like gold. Also Pharaoh issued a decree that wherever the name of the Queen Ahura was graven in all the land, to it should be added the title "By the will of Amen, Mother of his Morning Star," and that a new hall should be built in the temple of Amen in the Northern Apt, and all about it carved the story of the coming of Prince Abi and of the vision of the Queen. But Ahura never lived to see this glorious place, since from the hour of her daughter's birth she began to sink. On the fourteenth day, the day of purification, she bade the nurse bring the beautiful babe, and gazed at it
”
”
H. Rider Haggard (Morning Star)
“
It didn't take long to figure out I'll never go back to teaching public high school. Why would I, when I can make virtually the same money waiting tables, have no stress, and work half the hours? When I can give away or trade my shifts if I need time to write or study. When I'll never have to wake up early, take my work home, or talk to anyone's parents--unless it's in regards to the nightly specials, the Spanish grenache that pairs beautifully with our house-made mole sauce.
”
”
Nicole Hardy (Confessions of a Latter-day Virgin: A Memoir)
“
In Kenneth Grahame’s classic The Wind in the Willows, there is a chapter, “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn,” in which the characters Mole and Rat meet the animals’ deity, the god Pan, and hear him playing his pipes. They are stunned: “Rat,” he found breath to whisper, shaking. “Are you afraid?” “Afraid?” murmured the Rat, his eyes shining with unutterable love. “Afraid! Of Him? O, never, never! And yet—and yet—O, Mole, I am afraid!”177 That captures the concept of the “fear of God” as well as anything I know. We could say that fear of punishment is a self-absorbed kind of fear. It happens to people wrapped up in themselves. Those who believe the gospel—who believe that they are the recipients of undeserved but unshakable grace—grow in a paradoxically loving yet joyful fear. Because of unutterable love and joy in God, we tremble with the privilege of being in his presence and with an intense longing to honor him when we are there. We are deeply afraid of grieving him. To put it another way—you would be quite afraid if someone put a beautiful, priceless, ancient Ming dynasty vase in your hands. You wouldn’t be trembling with fear about the vase hurting you but about your hurting it. Of course, we can’t really harm God, but a Christian should be intensely concerned not to grieve or dishonor the one who is so glorious and who did so much for us.
”
”
Timothy J. Keller (Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God)
“
nail, which mole was shaped like the holy Sign of Life. Now Pharaoh and his house and the priests in every temple, and indeed all Egypt went mad with joy, though there were many who in secret mourned over the sex of the infant, whispering that a man and not a woman should wear the Double Crown. But in public they said nothing, since the story of this child had gone abroad and folk declared that it was sent by the gods, and divine, and that the goddesses, Isis, Nepthys, and Hathor, with Khemu, the Maker of Mankind, were seen in the birth chamber, glowing like gold. Also Pharaoh issued a decree that wherever the name of the Queen Ahura was graven in all the land, to it should be added the title "By the will of Amen, Mother of his Morning Star," and that a new hall should be built in the temple of Amen in the Northern Apt, and all about it carved the story of the coming of Prince Abi and of the vision of the Queen. But Ahura never lived to see this glorious place, since from the hour of her daughter's birth she began to sink. On the fourteenth day, the day of purification, she bade the nurse bring the beautiful babe, and gazed at it
”
”
H. Rider Haggard (Morning Star)
“
the first were blue like the summer sky at even. Also on her breast was a mole of the length of a finger nail, which mole was shaped like the holy Sign of Life. Now Pharaoh and his house and the priests in every temple, and indeed all Egypt went mad with joy, though there were many who in secret mourned over the sex of the infant, whispering that a man and not a woman should wear the Double Crown. But in public they said nothing, since the story of this child had gone abroad and folk declared that it was sent by the gods, and divine, and that the goddesses, Isis, Nepthys, and Hathor, with Khemu, the Maker of Mankind, were seen in the birth chamber, glowing like gold. Also Pharaoh issued a decree that wherever the name of the Queen Ahura was graven in all the land, to it should be added the title "By the will of Amen, Mother of his Morning Star," and that a new hall should be built in the temple of Amen in the Northern Apt, and all about it carved the story of the coming of Prince Abi and of the vision of the Queen. But Ahura never lived to see this glorious place, since from the hour of her daughter's birth she began to sink. On the fourteenth day, the day of purification, she bade the nurse bring the beautiful babe, and gazed at it long and blessed it, and spoke with the Ka or Double of the child, which she said she saw lying on her arm beside it, bidding that Ka protect it well through the dangers of life and death until the hour of resurrection. Then she said that she heard Amen calling to her to pay the price which she had promised for the gift of the divine child, the price of her own life, and smiled upon Pharaoh her husband, and
”
”
H. Rider Haggard (Morning Star)
“
I wipe the side of his eyes where there’s a beautiful mole.
”
”
Rina Kent (Steel Princess (Royal Elite, #2))
“
You guys let people with physical beauty attributes distract you from the bad things they do. Someone might kill another person , be corrupt or commit fraud and tomorrow when they leak their own nudes. They will be your favorite people. That is why slay queens are used to commit crime.
”
”
D.J. Kyos
“
Your birthday present. Nothing fancy, but I had it and I thought you might like it. It’s not a big deal.”
Once I saw what was on it, I gasped.
It was me.
A drawing of me, to be exact, in a pool surrounded by hills with the ocean in the distance. Head tipped back, smile on my face, looking freer and happier than I ever remembered feeling. The curve of my lips, the sparkle in my eyes, even the tiny mole beneath my ear… He’d captured it all in exquisite, painstaking detail, and looking at me through his eyes, I believed I was the most beautiful woman in the world.
”
”
Ana Huang (Twisted Games (Twisted, #2))
“
Praise the miracle body The odd and undeniable mechanics of hand
Hundred boned foot, perfect stretch of tendon
Praise the veins that river these wrists
Praise the prolapsed valve in a heart
Praise the scars marking a gallbladder absent
Praise the rasp and rattle of functioning lungs
Praise the pre-arthritic ache of elbows and ankles
Praise the lifeline sectioning a palm
Praise the photographic pads of fingertips
Praise the vulnerable dip at the base of a throat
Praise the muscles surfacing on an abdomen
Praise these arms that carry babies, and anthologies
Praise the leg hairs that sprout and are shaved
Praise the ass that refuses to shrink or be hidden
Praise the cunt that bleeds and accepts, bleeds and accepts
Praise the prominent ridge of nose
Praise the strange convexity of rib cage
Praise the single hair that insists on growing from a right areola
Praise the dent where the mole was clipped from the back of a neck
Praise these inner thighs brushing
Praise these eyelashes that sometimes turn inward
Praise these hips preparing to spread into a grandmother’s skirt
Praise the beauty of the freckle on the first knuckle of a left little finger
We’re gone in a blizzard of seconds
Love the body human while we’re here
A gift of minutes on an evolving planet
A country in flux, give thanks
For bone, and dirt, and the million things that will kill us someday
Motion and the pursuit of happiness, no garauntees, give thanks
For chaos theory, ecology, common sense that says we are web
A planet in balance or out
That butterfly in Tokyo setting off thunder storms in Iowa
Tell me you don’t matter to a universe that conspired to give you such a tongue
Such rhythm or rhythmless hips
Such opposable thumbs
Give thanks, or go home a waste of spark
Speak, or let the maker take back your throat
March, or let the creator rescind your feet
Dream, or let your god destroy your good and fertile mind
This is your warning
This your birthright
Do not let this universe regret you
”
”
Marty McConnell
“
Over and over again, growing increasingly hostile as he went, he blackened the earth, drawing with the magnet of his rage the storm of the bloody century to my demesne. Worms screamed in anguish as they burned. Moles, disturbed from slumber, whimpered once then crumbled to ash. I suffered the soft implosion of larvae not yet formed enough to rue the beauty they were losing; subterranean life in all its dark, earthy grandeur. The occasional burrowing snake hissed defiance as it was seared to death. Sean O’Bannion walks—the earth turns black, barren, and everything in it dies, a dozen feet down. Hell of a princely power. Again, what the fuck was the Unseelie king thinking? Was he? Incensed by failure, Sean insisted hotly, as we stood in the bloody deluge—it wasn’t raining, that scarce-restrained ocean that parked itself above Ireland at the dawn of time and proceeded to leak incessantly, lured by the siren-song of Sean’s broodiness decamped to Scotland and split wide open—that I was either lying or it didn’t work the same for each prince. Patiently (okay, downright pissily, but, for fuck’s sake, I could be having sex again and gave that up to help him), I explained it did work the same for each of us but, because he wasn’t druid-trained, it might take time for him to understand how to tap into it. Like learning to meditate. Such focus doesn’t come easy, nor does it come all at once. Practice is key. He refused to believe me. He stormed thunderously and soddenly off, great ebon wings dripping rivers of water, lightning bolts biting into the earth at his heels, Kat trailing sadly at a safe distance behind. I was raised from birth to be in harmony with the natural world. Humans are the unnatural part of it. Animals lack the passel of idiotic emotions we suffer. I’ve never seen an animal feel sorry for itself. While other children played indoors with games or toys, my da led me deep into the forest and taught me to become part of the infinite web of beating hearts that fill the universe, from the birds in the trees to the insects buzzing about my head, to the fox chasing her cubs up a hillside and into a cool, splashing stream, to the earthworms tunneling blissfully through the vibrant soil. By the age of five, it was hard for me to understand anyone who didn’t feel such things as a part of everyday life. As I matured, when a great horned owl perched nightly in a tree beyond my window, Uncle Dageus taught me to cast myself within it (gently, never usurping) to peer out from its eyes. Life was everywhere, and it was beautiful. Animals, unlike humans, can’t lie. We humans are pros at it, especially when it comes to lying to ourselves.
”
”
Karen Marie Moning (Kingdom of Shadow and Light (Fever, #11))
“
The Shining Twins move in closer.
"I admired you at the family dinner," one says.
"I wish I could eat like you," the other says.
Whoa. Shots fired. Still, I smile sweetly for the camera. Flash. I turn slightly left. This twin has a little mole beneath her eye, a beauty mark. "I bet I could make you." I say it loud enough for both to hear.
”
”
Emiko Jean (Tokyo Ever After (Tokyo Ever After, #1))
“
Your dream is the mole
behind your ear,
that chip in your
front tooth,
your freckles.
It's the thing that makes
you special,
but not the thing that makes
you great.
The courage in trying,
the passion in living,
and the acknowledgement
and appreciation of
the beauty happening around you does that.
Dreamer,
I am not fit to say much more,
because I don't know much more than that.
If you do,
please write back.
If not,
please accept this
as just a few words
of encouragement.
And if this letter means nothing to you,
if it's just more pointless weight
added to an already heavy life,
feel free to burn it
and use it for firelight
for this
long and often dark
road.
But if you somehow find truth,
comfort,
or anything at all
within this ramble,
keep it close
and use it for firelight
for this
long and often dark
road.
”
”
Jason Reynolds (For Every One)
“
The female household of the Han was carefully regulated. Selections were made every eighth month of the year when virgins of flawless families would be inspected by a three-man committee – a palace counsellor, a eunuch and a physiognomist who graded the girls from 1 to 9. The lucky one would then be brought to the capital Luoyang for intimate examination: ‘Skin white and fine…belly round, hips square, body like congealed lard and carved jade, breasts bulging and navel deep enough to take a half-inch pearl,’ read one report. ‘No haemorrhoids, no blemishes, no moles, no sores nor defects in the mouth, the nose, armpits, private parts or feet.’ Concubines were ranked as either Honourable, Beautiful or Chosen Ladies. One of the Honourable Ladies was usually made empress.
”
”
Simon Sebag Montefiore (The World: A Family History of Humanity)
“
This is like verbal whack-a-mole. I never know what’s gonna pop up next.
”
”
J.T. Geissinger (Dangerous Beauty (Dangerous Beauty, #1))
“
Your dream is the mole behind your ear, that chip in your front tooth, your freckles.
It's the thing that makes you special, but not the thing that makes you great.
The courage in trying, the passion in living, and the acknowledgement and appreciation of the beauty happening around you does that.
”
”
Jason Reynolds (For Every One)
“
Dreaming Of Hair"
Ivy ties the cellar door
in autumn, in summer morning glory
wraps the ribs of a mouse.
Love binds me to the one
whose hair I've found in my mouth,
whose sleeping head I kiss,
wondering is it death?
beauty? this dark
star spreading in every direction from the crown of her head.
My love's hair is autumn hair, there
the sun ripens.
My fingers harvest the dark
vegtable of her body.
In the morning I remove it
from my tongue and
sleep again.
Hair spills
through my dream, sprouts
from my stomach, thickens my heart,
and tangles from the brain. Hair ties the tongue dumb.
Hair ascends the tree
of my childhood--the willow
I climbed
one bare foot and hand at a time,
feeling the knuckles of the gnarled tree, hearing
my father plead from his window, _Don't fall!_
In my dream I fly
past summers and moths,
to the thistle
caught in my mother's hair, the purple one
I touched and bled for,
to myself at three, sleeping
beside her, waking with her hair in my mouth.
Along a slippery twine of her black hair
my mother ties ko-tze knots for me:
fish and lion heads, chrysanthemum buds, the heads
of Chinamen, black-haired and frowning.
Li-En, my brother, frowns when he sleeps.
I push back his hair, stroke his brow.
His hairline is our father's, three peaks pointing down.
What sprouts from the body
and touches the body?
What filters sunlight
and drinks moonlight?
Where have I misplaced my heart?
What stops wheels and great machines?
What tangles in the bough
and snaps the loom?
Out of the grave
my father's hair
bursts. A strand
pierces my left sole, shoots
up bone, past ribs,
to the broken heart it stiches,
then down,
swirling in the stomach, in the groin, and down,
through the right foot.
What binds me to this earth?
What remembers the dead
and grows towards them?
I'm tired of thinking.
I long to taste the world with a kiss.
I long to fly into hair with kisses and weeping,
remembering an afternoon
when, kissing my sleeping father, I saw for the first time
behind the thick swirl of his black hair,
the mole of wisdom,
a lone planet spinning slowly.
Sometimes my love is melancholy
and I hold her head in my hands.
Sometimes I recall our hair grows after death.
Then, I must grab handfuls
of her hair, and, I tell you, there
are apples, walnuts, ships sailing, ships docking, and men
taking off their boots, their hearts breaking,
not knowing
which they love more, the water, or
their women's hair, sprouting from the head, rushing toward the feet.
”
”
Li-Young Lee (Rose)
“
Because Stalin lived there, Moscow was the heart of the whole country and the longed-for city of the working masses of the whole world. Soldiers sang songs about Moscow, writers wrote books about it, poets praised it in verse. Films were made about Moscow and fascinating tales told about it. It seemed that deep under its streets, entombed like gigantic moles, long gleaming trains rushed smoothly along and stopped noiselessly at stations decorated with marble and mosaics finer than those in the most beautiful churches.
”
”
Jerzy Kosiński (The Painted Bird)
“
I’m at the airport. I’m waiting for the plane to take me home to my sister and my mother. I bought cream at Lush to rub onto Elf’s body. She has a surprisingly beautiful body for a woman in her late forties. Her legs are slim and firm. She has muscular thighs. Her smile is an event. She laughs so hard. She makes me laugh so hard. She gets surprised. Her eyes open wide, comically, she can’t believe it. Her skin is pristine, smooth and pale. Her hair is so black and her eyes so green like they’re saying go, go, go! She doesn’t have horrible freckles and moles and facial hair like me and big bones poking out like twisted rebar at the dump. She’s petite and feminine. She’s glamorous and dark and jazzy like a French movie star. She loves me. She mocks sentimentality. She helps me stay calm. Her hands aren’t ravaged by time and her breasts don’t sag. They’re small, pert, like a girl’s. Her eyes are wet emeralds. Her eyelashes are too long. The snow weighs them down in the winter and she makes me cut them shorter with our mother’s sewing scissors so they don’t obscure her vision. I knocked over a tray of bath bombs the size of tennis balls, bright yellow, onto the floor and I couldn’t figure out how to pick them up. The woman said it was okay. I can’t remember now if I paid for the cream. I’m going home. NINE When Elf went away to Europe my mother decided to emancipate herself as well and enrolled in university classes in the city to become a social worker and then a therapist.
”
”
Miriam Toews (All My Puny Sorrows)
“
A formless blob begins to morph and then evolves into a humanoid shape. A male body is revealed to her. A twenty-year-old man that looks a bit older than her, but no more than a few years at most. He has pale skin but a tan pigmentation to his dermal membrane, similarly to those who have descended from Hispanic or Spanish heritage. His eyes are heterochromatic, gleaming like gems in this uncanny realm. Identical to the eyes of her beloved cat: one shines with the radiance of a sapphire, while the other glows with a fiery dissimilarity, resembling a diametrical ruby. Somehow, though different in color, the blankness of his eyes are far from antithetical to the pair that were painted in the picture of her dream from days ago, that seemed to have come right out of a Dalí painting. Invoking the memory of the dead-eyed stare that continually to haunts her.
He is very handsome with a large forehead, and slick ebony hair. His eyebrows are incredibly expressive, as if they were sketched on with a pencil. And he had a teardrop mole underneath his right eye. He had long eyelashes and a porcelain doll mouth. He is adorned in all white: a long-sleeved white sweater with white pants and a pair of white combat boots.
Although he has manifested himself in such a beautiful form, Juniper doesn't feel any attraction towards him. When she blushes, it is only from humiliation. Their eyes are locked together in an encumbrance of space-time.
”
”
H.E. Rodgers