“Fairy Tales always have a happy ending.' That depends... on whether you are Rumpelstiltskin or the Queen.”

“Happy-ever-after is a fairy-tale notion, not history. I know of no woman who escaped from Chelmno alive.”

“They [Fairy Tales] are talking about real emotions, telling true stories, through the medium of metaphor. People used to understand metaphor better than I think we do now. But these stories are so potent, they refuse to die.”

“The tales of Elfland do not stand or fall on their actuality but on their truthfulness, their speaking to the human condition, the longings we all have for the Faerie Other.”

“Shit is another useful word. Also very common. For example, pleasantly surprised? You say 'No shit?' You think someone tells you tales, you scoff 'You're shitting me.' You find something you like very much, you exclaim 'That's good shit!”

“JANE: What to do when it is that time in your girl child's life:1. Sit down calmly and explain sex to her?2. Buy her a book, video, or CD that gives her the details?3. Buy her condoms and put her on the pill?Or do as many mothers before you did—just stick your head in the sand and hope she joins a convent.Of course these days your child may know more about sex than you did at her age, what with in-school health lessons, and out-of-school R-rated movies easily accessed on the TV, not to mention the Starr Report!In the days of fairy tales, sex was dangerous because so many women died in childbirth. Today sex is again dangerous because of diseases like AIDS. So what do we say?”

“The thing about endings is, they can begin quietly enough. That's how they sneak up on you.”