Eleanor was right. She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn't supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes that true art elicits emotions rather than focusing on superficial beauty.
Rainbow Rowell's quote reflects the idea that art transcends conventional beauty and instead evokes deep emotions and thoughts in the viewer. Eleanor's unique appearance is likened to art, suggesting that like art, she may not conform to societal standards of attractiveness, but has a profound impact that resonates with authenticity and raw emotion.
In practice
In a discussion about unconventional beauty in art, this quote can illustrate how deeper feelings matter more than surface appearances.
He knew why he wanted to kiss her. Because she was beautiful. And before that, because she was kind. And before that, because she was smart and funny. Because she was exactly the right kind of smart and funny. Because he could imagine taking a long trip with her without ever getting bored. Because whenever he saw something new and interesting, or new and ridiculous, he always wondered what she'd have to say about it--how many stars she'd give it and why.
I wouldn't want everybody to be an art or literature major, but the world would be poorer - figuratively, anyway - if we were all coding software or running companies. We also want musicians to awaken our souls, writers to lead us into fictional lands, and philosophers to help us exercise our minds and engage the world.
Some of the most intense affairs are between actors and characters. There's a fire in the human heart and we jump into it with the same obsession as we have with our lovers.
Art is not ideology. It is completely impossible to explain art on the basis of the homological relation that it is supposed to maintain with the real of history. The aesthetic process decentres the specular relation with which ideology perpetuates its closed infinity. The aesthetic effect is certainly imaginary; but this imaginary is not the reflection of the real, since it is the real of this reflection.
One does not photograph something simply for 'what it is', but 'for what else it is.
A playwright must be his own audience. A novelist may lose his readers for a few pages; a playwright never dares lose his audience for a minute.
No eyes that have seen beauty ever lose their sight.
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