Louis de Pointe du Lac, Interview with the Vampire:

“The old man started to whine. Only my peculiar state of emotions and most unusual feeling of exhaustion kept me from disapproving [of Lestat’s behavior]. I was watching the scene through the open door, enthralled with the colors of the counterpane and the positive riot of color in the old man’s face. His blue veins pulsed beneath his pink and grayish flesh. I found even the yellow of his teeth appealing to me; and I became almost hypnotized by the quivering of his lip." 

So one of the reasons I love this quote is that Louis is seeing an ordinary man, what any of us might see as probably a sort of ugly old man, close to death,  gross even… But Louis sees the beauty in this man simply because he’s alive. 

I see alot of posts on tumblr about people not liking their own appearance. When you see it from an outside perspective like this, where even a dying old man is beautiful, it opens your mind to the possibility that you’re judging yourself too harshly. Everyone can be beautiful. Beauty takes so many forms.

Maybe this is part of why I’m so attached to this book, this series, these characters. Fiction is speculative reality, it’s an escape that’s also a mirror pointed back at us, a suggestion that we might see the world a little differently, perhaps as a little brighter, if only we open ourselves to the possibility.