“You've heard tales of beauty and the beast. How a fair maid falls in love with a monster and sees the beauty of his soul beneath the hideous visage. But you've never heard the tale of the handsome man falling for the monstrous woman and finding joy in her love, because it doesn't happen, not even in a story-teller's tale.”

“For Her Ugliness loved stories full of darkness. She didn't want to be told tales of good fortune and beauty, she liked to hear about death, ugly things, secrets heavy with tears. She wanted her very own world, and it had never heard of beauty and good fortune.”

“There was a time he’d heard tales of Dab Sweet and he’d stuck thumbs in his belt and chin to the sky and tricked himself that was how his life had been. But the years scraped by hard as ever and he got less and the stories more ’til they were tales of a man he’d never met succeeding at what he’d never have dreamed of attempting.”

“Never trust the teller, trust the tale. The proper function of a critic is to save the tale from the artist who created it.”

“You don't want to work to fall in love, you want to be in love. Like in a fairy tale.”

“The problem with falling in love is falling back out of it again, usually because you've fallen in love with a lie. That happens as often as not.”