“We are all in the middle of nature beauty contest.”

“All we have, it seems to me, is the beauty of art and nature and life, and the love which that beauty inspires.”

“There was no question about it- the girl in the photograph was staggeringly beautiful. She was Miss Canal Zone, a runner-up in the Miss Universe Contest -- and in fact far more beautiful than the winner of the contests. Her beauty had frightened the judges.”

“We only have one story. All novels, all poetry are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil.”

“Beauty is our weapon against nature; by it we make objects, giving them limit, symmetry, proportion. Beauty halts and freezes the melting flux of nature.”

“Everything is a contest. All dealings among men are a contest in which some will succeed and others fail. And some are failing quite spectacularly.”