Cara

“And the strange thing was: I knew that most people didn't see her as I did--if anything, found her a bit odd-looking wth her off-kilter walk and her spooky redhead pallor. For whatever dumb reason I had always flattered myself that I was the only person in the world who really appreciated her--that she would be shocked and touched and maybe even come to view herself in a whole new light if she knew just how beautiful I found her. But this had never happened. Angrily, I concentrated on her flaws...Yet all these aspects were--to me--so tender and particular they moved me to despair.”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“Her voice, hoarse, was an unmistakable echo down the corridors of memory.”
― Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon

“the words carved above the cathedral of my childhood”
― Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon

“She was the golden thread running through everything, a lens that magnified beauty so that the whole world stood transfigured in relation to her, and her alone.”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch