That is the eternal folly of man. To be chasing after the sweet flesh, without realizing that it is simply a pretty cover for the bones.

She really was pretty, for a grown-up person, but when you are seven, beauty is an abstraction, not an imperative. I wonder what I would have done if she had smiled at me like that now: whether I would have handed my mind or my heart or my identify to her for the asking, as my father did.

She really was pretty, for a grown-up, but when you are seven, beauty is an abstraction, not an imperative.

...Minnesota, Wisconsin, all around there... has the kind of women I liked when I was younger. Pale-skinned and blue-eyed, hair so fair it's almost white, wine-colored lips, and round, full breasts with the veins running through them like a good cheese.