She said that these were things all women knew yet seldom spoke of. Lastly she said that if women were drawn to rash men it was only that in their secret hearts they knew that a man who would not kill for them was of no use at all.

In truth they did not look like men who might have whiskey they hadnt drunk.

What a man seeks is beauty, plain and simple. No other way to put it. The rustle of her clothes, her scent. The sweep of her hair across his naked stomach ( . . . ) That the man knows not how to even name that which enslaves him hardly lightens his burden.

What runs so contrary to received wisdom is that it really is the male who is the aesthete while the woman is drawn to abstractions. Wealth. Power. What a man seeks is beauty, plain and simple. No other way to put it. The rustle of her clothes, her scent. The sweep of her hair across his naked stomach. Categories all but meaningless to a woman. Lost in her calculations.

I know that to be female is an older thing even than to be human.

Beauty makes promises that beauty cant keep. I've seen it too many times. Twice in this house.

There was something northern about him that magnetised her.

She had scornful grey eyes, a skin like white honey, and a full mouth with a slightly lifted upper lip, that did not know whether it was raised in scorn of all men, or out of eagerness to be kissed.

Of the human form especially, it is so great it must never be made ridiculous . . . Exaggerations will be revenged in human physiology.

Be careless in your dress if you must, but keep a tidy soul.

The beauty of a woman grows with the passing years.

Then as she looked up in his face, he smiled most sweetly and said something he had never said before, "You have one real beauty, Much-Afraid, you have such trustful eyes. Trust is one of the much beautiful things in the world. When I look at the trust in your eyes I find you more beautiful to look upon than many a lovely queen.