“Was it pretty? Your country. . .your land?" "It was beautiful," the gunslinger said. "There were fields and forests and rivers and mists in the morning. But that's only pretty. My mother used to say that the only real beauty is order and love and light.”

“That's how powerful you are, girl...You pretty, but pretty alone is not what people see. You the kinda pretty, the kinda beauty, that's like a mirror. Men and women see themselves in you, only now they so beautiful that they can't bear to see you go.”

“Only through Beauty's morning-gate, dost thou penetrate the land of knowledge.”

“When ladies used to come to me in dreams, I said, 'Pretty mother, pretty mother.' But when at last she really came, I shot her.”

“Well," I said finally, knowing he was waiting, "you make me laugh."He nodded. "And?""You're pretty good-looking.""Pretty good-looking? I called you beautiful.""You want to be beautiful?" I asked him."Are you saying I'm not?”

“Concord is a classic land. The names of Emerson and Thoreau and Channing and Hawthorne are associated with the fields and forests and lakes and rivers of this township.”