“She says there are stories everywhere and that people who wait for the right one to come along before setting pen to paper end up with very empty pages.”

“I want to be independent. To meet interesting people. ... I just mean new people with clever things to say. Things I've never heard before. I want to be free. Open to whatever adventure comes along and sweeps me off my feet.”

“You must learn to know the difference between tales and the truth, my Liza, she would say. Fairy tales have a habit of ending too soon. They never show what happens afterwards when the prince and princess ride off the page.”

“Photographs force us to see people before their future weighed them down, before they knew their endings.”

“Ever since Eliza had discovered the book of fairy tales . . . had disappeared inside its faded pages, she'd understood the power of stories. Their magical ability to refill the wounded part of people.”

“...She's understood the power of stories. Their magical ability to refill the wounded part of people.”

“She's one of the few people able to look beyond the lines on my face to see the twenty-year-old who lives inside.”