For Degas, women were the heroes of modern life, the figures whose actions mattered – and those actions were the gestures of daily living.

– Wendy Lesser

The two monsters – sex and drugs – have generated a new and different being, monstrous and demonic.

– Pope John Paul II

Apparently she has made something of a name for herself in the matter of viciousness; three of our men brought in the very same description – a vicious beauty.

– C. Daly King

I had never before thought of her as beautiful. Strange, uncanny, wonderful, if you like, but the word beauty had too kindly and human a sound for such a face. But as she stood with heightened color, her eyes like stars, her poise like a wild bird’s, I had to confess that she had her own loveliness. She might be a devil, but she was also a queen. I considered that there might be merits in the prospect of riding by her side into Jerusalem.

– John Buchan

We may assume that the fertility rites which at a more advanced stage of civilization seemed indecent were performed by the mass of worshipers with complete purity of heart.

– F. Marian McNeill.

Everything whirls

and still the young girls

laugh and mock my name.

– John Hinkley