“The eyes, like sentinels, occupy the highest place in the body.”
“The face is a picture of the mind with the eyes as its interpreter.”
“The countenance is the portrait of the soul, and the eyes mark its intentions.’ Marcus Tullius Cicero
Christina here – the Roman Cicero seems to have had a lot to say about eyes, but I totally agree with him about their importance – they are “the windows of the soul” as someone said, no matter what colour they are. And we might not always notice other people’s eyes in real life, but when it comes to fictional characters, they are crucial, at least for me, especially when describing a hero. Eyes can be shifty, evasive, not looking straight at you when you’re talking to their owner. That’s not good. A hero has to have an honest, direct gaze, and just looking him in the eyes must make the heroine (and thereby also the reader) feel they can trust him and that he's telling the truth.
“The tongue may hide the truth but the eyes – never!” Mikhail Bulgakov