D B

“He looked at her as a man looks at a faded flower he has gathered, with difficulty recognizing in it the beauty for which he picked and ruined it.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“What a strange illusion it is to suppose that beauty is goodness.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“Every man who knows to the minutest details all the complexity of the conditions surrounding him, cannot help imagining that the complexity of these conditions, and the difficulty of making them clear, is something exceptional and personal, peculiar to himself, and never supposes that others are surrounded by just as complicated an array of personal affairs as he is.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“All that time I had spent readying myself, the articles that taught me life was really just a waiting room until someone noticed you—the boys had spent that time becoming themselves.”
― Emma Cline, The Girls