“And the prince who had once been a bear pulled close the girl who had once had no name, and kissed her.”

“Alone in my chamber, I fairly trembled with excitement. How could it be that I, who had never been kissed before, had kissed the Prince of Denmark himself, not once but many times? Did he really speak to me of love? It was beyond belief that I, humble Ophelia, should be wooed by Prince Hamlet. Surely I had imagined it.”

“High heels were invented by a woman who had once been kissed on the forehead.”

“As a little girl she had liked looking at her palms against the light, the red peeking through her closed fingers. Once she had shown it to her father and he had kissed her fingertips, pretending to eat them.”

“Once upon a time there was a little prince who lived on a planet scarcely bigger than himself and who had need for a friend.”

“...she immediately became the person they believed her to be: a peculiar, impatient girl, attractive enough yet too old and odd for the village boys who had once been her friends.”