“At the ripe old age of seventeen, Donna had decided that "happily ever after" didn't exist for freaks like her.”

“I didn't want the 'ever' that came after happily. I didn't... don't want to be the one left behind.”

“That's the thing about people you loved. They disappeared on you. I didn't know much at the ripe old age of fifteen and a half. But, for better or worse, I knew that.”

“Is not where I live happily ever after, or who with. It's the fact that I live happily ever after.”

“They lived happily ever after. It said so. In the book. They were the last words on the page. Happily ever after. Despereaux was sure that he had read exactly those words time and time again.Lying on the floor with the drum beating and the mice shouting... Despereaux had a sudden, chilling thought: Had some other mouse eaten the words that spoke the truth? Did the knight and the fair maiden really not live happily ever after?”

“He returned to Cambridge feeling, at the ripe old age of twenty, that life was passing him by.”