I think there’ve been a lot of misguided attempts to change what’s already perfect.

I didn't know that the world could be so mind-blowingly beautiful.

You know what’s funny? Jacob asked. He didn’t wait for my answer. You can see beauty in everything, except for yourself.

Flawed, we're truly interesting, truly memorable, and yes, truly beautiful.

What swells inside me is a love so boundless, I am the sunrise and sunset. I am Liberty Bell in the Cascades. I am Beihai Lake. I am every beautiful, truly beautiful, thing I've ever seen, captured in my personal Geographia, the atlas of myself.

I preferred my brand of beauty where Norah was more beautiful than any bimbette, and Mom was beautiful whether sized extra-small or extra-large. Where Peony could look at herself in the mirror and murmur, wow, look at me. Just look at me.

I didn’t have the language to communicate that to this little girl - or to communicate that beauty - real, everlasting beauty - lives not on our faces, but in our attitude and our actions. It lives in what we do for ourselves and for others.