"Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it. And what could be more terrifying and beautiful, to souls like the Greeks or our own, than to lose control completely? To throw off the chains of being for an instant, to shatter the accident of our mortal selves? Beauty is terror. We want to be devoured by it, to hide ourselves in that fire which refines us."
- The Secret History by Donna Tartt