excerpt from "through the looking glass" :

a human face is a particularly cooperative subject for contemplation, as our faces are such miraculous and expressive creations. from the small vicinity of your face, you are able to blush, kiss, speak, sing, and weep. it also by your face that you are recognizable, and also from your face that you are able to recognize others. more than 1,500 year ago, st. augustine wrote that he was astonished every time he walked down a city street and considered the sheer variety of human faces. what an extraordinary artist god must be, he contemplated, to create such a multiplicity of appearances using the same basic components each time: two eyes, two ears, one nose, one mouth...

elizabeth gilbert