“No sign of pleasure greeted the announcement. The mood in the hall was leaden.My mood was livelier. Fright is livelier than lead.”

“Daughter, we didn't need your note - or a prince's visit - to tell us you'd done nothing wrong. We know the daughter we raised. We fear for your future, but never for your character. You take our l...”

“To me, merely and pretty were words that had nothing to do with each other. Pretty went with miraculously, and merely belonged in another paragraph entirely.”

“Kisses were better than potions.”

“Climb the day, Drop your dreams, Possess the day.”

“I'm solitary as a pulled tooth,Lonely as an unwelcome truth, Lost as a minnow out of school, A genius in a crop of fools.”

“How little our careers express what lies in us, and yet how much time they take up. It's sad, really.”

“Tell the truth through whichever veil comes to hand but tell it. Resign yourself to the lifelong sadness that comes from never being satisfied.”

“What a sad story, I thought for so long. Not that I now think it was happy. But I think it is true, and thus the question of whether it is sad or happy has no meaning whatever.”