Only loose-screwed space detectives, like me, and crackpot science-fiction writers, like Wacky Williamson, have noodles vacuous enough to harbor such… - E.E. "Doc" Smith

Near them there crouched or huddled or lay at ease a many-tentacled creature indescribable to man. It was not like an octopus. Though spiny, it did not resemble at all closely a sea-cucumber. Nor, although it was scaly and toothy and wingy, was it, save in the vaguest possible way, similar to a lizard, a sea-serpent or a vulture. Such a description by negatives is, of course, pitifully inadequate; but, unfortunately, it is the best that can be done.

DEI EX MACHINA

How could he explain beauty, or music, or art, to this . . . this matriarchal savage? How explain cerise to a man born blind? And above all, who had ever heard of having to explain to a woman — to any woman, anywhere in the whole macrocosmic universe — that she in particular was beautiful?