“Yet there must be something repulsive about her somewhere, something more repelling than just a pair of eyes that couldn't see, for she'd been told they were still outwardly blue and clear and large as new. Or maybe the flaw was in the other people, in the old mistrust of a person who wasn't exactly like them, or in the equally time-polished belief that, because a person wasn't physically perfect outside, she must be either superhuman or subhuman inside and shouldn't or couldn't be treated like other people.”

“But the Beast was a good person...the Prince looked on the outside the way the Beast was on the inside. Sometimes people couldn't see the inside of the person unless they like the outside of a person. Because they hadn't learned to hear the music yet.”

“A person couldn't make something last if it wasn't meant to, like a person couldn't be someone they weren't. And trying only prolonged the inevitable.”

“Frankie appreciated both the accolades and the rejections equally, because both meant she'd had an impact. She wasn't a person who needed to be liked so much as she was a person who liked to be notorious.”

“Anyway, how can you say things like that? You don't know me at all." She wasn't really caught up in this game, but she was enjoying it, as she had enjoyed the dozens of declarations that had been made to her since she was eleven. Her earliest memories were of being told how beautiful she was. Something in her never believed the words, never felt satisfied. It wasn't modesty; it was a craving for more proof than anyone had ever yet given her. Her mind worked constantly at trying to understand for herself exactly what other people saw when they looked at her. She could never grasp it whole and living. Her deepest fantasy was to step outside of her skin and look at herself and find out just what people were thinking about. She spent her life experimenting with people to see how she could make them react, as if, in their response, she could discover herself.”

“In fairy tales there's always one person who is made for one other, and they find each other and live happily ever after. Cal was my person. I couldn't imagine anyone more perfect. Yet what kind of sick fairy tale would it be if he was the one made exactly right for me and I wasn't right for him?”