“Butterflies and zebras and moonbeams and fairy tales, That's all she ever thinks about,Riding with the wind.”

“When we think about fairy tales, we think about happily ever afters, forgetting the darkness that stories beginning with "once upon a time" so often contain.I tried to protect Shay from that darkness. But there was no way to shield her from the truth: Life is not a fairy tale.”

“What I mean is, all the terrible things that happen in fairy tales seem real. Or not real, but genuine. Life is unfair, and the bad guys keep winning and good people die. But I like how that's not always the end of it...Evil is real, but so is good. They always say fairy tales are simplistic, black and white, but I don't think so. I think they're complicated. That's what I love about them.”

“And our lady friend, she thinks life works like a fairy tale.'Well, that’s harmless, isn’t it?'Yeah, but in fairy tales, when someone dies... it’s just a word.”

“Not all fairy tales have happily ever afters, some just have afters.”

“Think of every fairy-tale villainess you've ever heard of. Think of the wicked witches, the evil queens, the mad enchantresses. Think of the alluring sirens, the hungry ogresses, the savage she-beasts. Think of them and remember that somewhere, sometime, they've all been real.Mab gave them lessons.”