Every baby is born beautiful. It's what we project on them that makes them ugly.

Like the teens I worked with, I understood the need for miracles--they kept reality from paralyzing you

She's not classically beautiful, but somehow that only makes her more interesting.

The woman who opens the door has a blue stain on her shirt and dark hair wound into a messy knot and the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen. They're pale, like a lioness's, nearly golden, but they also look like they've done their fair share of crying, and we all know that a sky with clouds in it is much more interesting than one that doesn't have any.

A girl who is thirteen-which is hard, and difficult, and beautiful, and painful, and exhilarating.