“Beautiful. Belle is French for beautiful.”“Oh dear.” She could never live up to her name. The thought made her want to cry. “Please, sir.”“But you are beautiful. It mystifies me that you don’t seem to believe that fact.”“My mirror tells me otherwise every day of my life.”“Then accept that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and my eyes tell me you are beautiful.”

“No, listen. I've got it now. You meet a girl: shy, unassuming. If you tell her she's beautiful, she'll think you're sweet, but she won't believe you. She knows that beauty lies in your beholding." Bast gave a grudging shrug. "And sometimes that's enough."His eyes brightened. "But there's a better way. You show her she is beautiful. You make mirrors of your eyes, prayers of your hands against her body. It is hard, very hard, but when she truly believes you..." Bast gestured excitedly. "Suddenly the story she tells herself in her own head changes. She transforms. She isn't seen as beautiful. She is beautiful, seen.”

“Her beauty was a divine delicacy that I could only hold within my dreams. I tested my dream of her beauty, and I whispered her grace to the angels. The sounds of heaven replied back to me, telling me that her beauty transcended not only my dreams, but even heaven.”

“Smoke is not chasing me and making my eyes sweat. My eyes are not burning. I am not crying. I am not standing behind my mother and she is not facing the wall and she is not saying, 'Smoke follows beauty.' Smoke follows beauty. Smoke follows beauty. Smoke follows beauty.”

“So tell me, what is our ending? Will it be beautiful? So beautiful? Will my life find me by your side? 'Cause your love is beautiful, so beautiful.”

“You're beautiful, Delaney, and you could have anyone you want. Why me?" She knew she wasn't beautiful, not like her mother. But the way he looked at her and touched her, and the tone of his voice when he said it made her almost believe him. He made her believe anything was possible. "Because you make me not want to say no.”