❝ Sometimes, I find myself reflecting on my life. Beautiful moments and ugly moments. They are much like times of happiness and times of misfortune. And so I have come to think this… My life has been filled with beauty—I have been both cursed by beauty, and blessed by it as well. Beside me, at all times, flowers of beauty bloom in wild profusion—they wither, rot, give off a stench, and crumble into decay. Beauty and ugliness are synonymous with blessing and curse. They are both terrifying and wondrous things. That is what my life has been.