'The truly awful thing about beauty is that it reminds us of our limits. Beauty is a kind of unrelenting cruelty. It takes the truth, hones it to a terrifying keenness, and uses it to slice us to the bone.
A good body is a monstrous thing; it stalks and hunts us in the smallest parts of ourselves. It extracts from us painful truths. When Wallace sees a good body, what he feels is thirst, or else an ache, which is the sensation of beauty forcing its way inside.'
Brandon Taylor, Real Life, p.269.
