“Finally, she'd given up, basking in the freaking glow of the most amazing experience she'd ever had.[...] Last night had overflowed with magical trappings, perfect timing, everything. That wasn't real. In a real world, Cinderella had to go back to being Cinderella the next day.”

“Were all first loves like that? Somehow she doubted it; even now it struck her as being more real than anything she'd ever known. Sometimes it saddened her to think that she'd never experience that kind of feeling again, but then life had a way of stamping out that intensity of passion; she'd learned all too well that love wasn't always enough.”

“In the last few months, she'd had a lot of time to consider the state of mankind, and she'd decided that people actually had very few choices in their lives. Most things happened to you. Most things rolled right over you and then kept on going.”

“Never look back. If Cinderella went to pick up her shoe, she would not had become a princess ....”

“[Her life] had taken on the shape of a terrible mistake. She hadn't been given the proper tools to make a real life with, she decided, that was it. She'd been given a can of gravy and a hair-brush and told, "There you go." She'd stood there for years, blinking and befuddled, brushing the can with the brush.”

“What at night had been perfect and ideal was by day the more or less defective real.”