“But who could teach daughters how to fly? Parents were by definition earthbound, grub eaters, feet in their own coffins, by dint of being parents.”

“How could anyone live without flying?”

“How easily Neverland is corrupted into the deserted island of Lord of the Flies. How quickly Tinkerbell regresses to being one of the flies pestering the gouged eye sockets of the pig that the lost boys butcher.”

“Those times are over and gone, and good-riddance to them, too. We were hopelessly high-spirited. Now we're the thick-waisted generation, dragging along our children behind us and carrying our parents on our backs. And we're in charge, while the figures who used to command our respect are wasting away.”

“Do good though, will you?" She blinked brightly at the green girl. "If not for your parents or your grandmother, then for me?”

“I may not know how to fly but I know how to read, and that's almost the same thing.”

“. . . this girl who seemed, increasingly, to be interested in learning to read everything except how human beings talked to one another.”