“The evil queen was stupid to play Snow White's game. There's an age where a woman has to move on to another kind of power. Money, for example. Or a gun.”

“Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest one of all? The evil queen was stupid to play Snow White's game. There's an age where a woman has to move on to another kind of power. Money, for example. Or a gun.”

“I have always known that there were spellbinding evil parts for women. For one thing, I was taken at an early age to see Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Never mind the Protestant work ethic of the dwarfs. Never mind the tedious housework-is-virtuous motif. Never mind the fact that Snow White is a vampire -- anyone who lies in a glass coffin without decaying and then comes to life again must be. The truth is that I was paralysed by the scene in which the evil queen drinks the magic potion and changes her shape. What power, what untold possibilities!”

“Do grown men always have to play games? Does everything have to be an excuse for another kind of game? Do any men grow up or do they only come of age?”

“Making or getting money is a kind of game where there are not any rules at all.”

“Feronia played at politics the way she played chess--shrewdly, always thinking about her next move. In this game, Feronia was queen, and Byrony a pawn. Normally, there was no comparing their strengths. But if a pawn was clever and evaded the ire of stronger pieces, if it moved strategically, if it refused to yield, there were ways it might advance. Ways it might become a queen.”