“The days of my vanity are over and heaven knows they weren't happy enough to regret”

“No point my telling you he's not worth it, I suppose. . . I've seen enough men in my time. Whoever he is, he's not worth what you'll pay.”

“Vitamins are medicine for not getting sick and going back to Heaven yet.”

“For some people, she thought, trials were only temporary; they sailed towards happiness through the roughest weather.”

“It's all real in Outside, everything there is, because I saw an airplane in the blue between the clouds. Ma and me can't go there because we don't know the secret code, but it's real all the same.Before I didn't know to be mad that we can't open Door, my head was too small to have Outside in it.”

“If he guessed his mistake, if he wanted me back, I thought, let him suffer and work for it as I had worked and suffered. Let him follow me over a mountain of iron and a lake of glass, and wear out three swords in my defense. But at my truest, lying awake trying to count the stars, I knew my prince would not follow. In my mind's eye I saw him in his palace, stroking the gold and silver and starry dresses which were fading now like leaves in winter, weeping for a spotless princess who did not exist, who had drowned in the river of time.”

“In the world I notice persons are nearly always stressed and have no time...I don't know how persons with jobs do the jobs and all the living as well...I guess the time gets spread very thin like butter all over the world, the roads and houses and playgrounds and stores, so there's only a little smear of time on each place, then everyone has to hurry on to the next bit.”