“It doesn't matter if you're born in a duck yard, so long as you are hatched from a swan's egg!”

“His own image; no longer a dark, gray bird, ugly and disagreeable to look at, but a graceful and beautiful swan. To be born in a duck's nest, in a farmyard, is of no consequence to a bird, if it is hatched from a swan's egg.”

“Being born in a duck yard does not matter, if only you are hatched from a swan's egg.”

“Everything you look at can become a fairy tale and you can get a story from everything you touch.”

“Where are your sons?" asked the prince."Well, it's not so easy to give an answer when you ask a stupid question!" said the woman.”

“I can give her no greater power than she has already, said the woman; don't you see how strong that is? How men and animals are obliged to serve her, and how well she has got through the world, barefooted as she is. She cannot receive any power from me greater than she now has, which consists in her own purity and innocence of heart. If she cannot herself obtain access to the Snow Queen, and remove the glass fragments from little Kay, we can do nothing to help her.”

“But a mermaid has no tears, and therefore she suffers so much more.”