Speaking of Beauty

"Kansas can't be the only place in which a heterosexual man never uses the word beauty except to refer to a dead deer, a new pickup, or Lee Harvey Oswald's prowess with a rifle."

-Denis Donoghue, in Speaking of Beauty*

Donoghue continues:

"Even in polite society, beauty is difficult to talk about, if only because the words nearest to it are gestures, though not necessarily empty ones."

Perhaps architectural theorist Christopher Alexander knows why: "Because you cannot use the word beauty without getting actually somewhere close to the idea of God. I mean, you can use it, but not really, because you sort of shake inside when you do it and realize your at the edge of something dangerous."
-Alexander in this interview.

*If you live near a Half Price Books store, this seems to be making the clearance racks around now.