“He was reading from the beginning so that he could get to the end, where the reader was assured that the knight and the fair maiden lived together 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?”

“Despereaux was reading the story out loud to himself. He was reading from the beginning so that he could get to the end...”

“[A young adult novel] ends not with happily ever after, but at a new beginning, with the sense of a lot of life yet to be lived.”

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

“But in real life, happily-ever-after is just the beginning. It's where life starts.”