“Too many people realize at the end of their lives that they've taken for granted those who really love them. ”

“Are you watching the boats?" Cornelia guessed. She craned her neck to see if there was any excitement on the river.Heavens no, I'm spying on people," Virginia responded unrepentantly.-Cornelia E and Virginia Somerset”

“This story was written many moons ago under an apple tree in an orchard in Kent, which is one of England's prettiest counties . . . I had read at least twenty of the [fairy tales] when I noticed something that had never struck me before--I suppose because I had always taken it for granted. All the princesses, apart from such rare exceptions as Snow White, were blond, blue-eyed, and beautiful, with lovely figures and complexions and extravagantly long hair. This struck me as most unfair, and suddenly I began to wonder just how many handsome young princes would have asked a king for the hand of his daughter if that daughter had happened to be gawky, snub-nosed, and freckled, with shortish mouse-colored hair? None, I suspected. They would all have been of chasing after some lissome Royal Highness with large blue eyes and yards of golden hair and probably nothing whatever between her ears! It was in that moment that a story about a princess who turned out to be ordinary jumped into my mind, and the very next morning I took my pencil box and a large rough-notebook down to the orchard and, having settled myself under an apple tree in full bloom, began to write . . . the day was warm and windless and without a cloud in the sky. A perfect day and a perfect place to write a fairy story.”

“We're allowed to go on living happy, healthy lives because tens of thousands of animals like this chimp sacrifice their lives. But all people do is kill and hate and do whatever they please. I guess they forgot that nature is what keeps us all alive.”

“Lies, Betrayal, and Infidelity are like having a million red ants on you.It starts off with a sting and ends with bites that eat away at you painfully and slowly until there is no more of you left.”

“No, you're not. And you're not fooling anybody by trying to pretend you are. Maybe it's because of what you've been through. Maybe it's just the way you were born. I don't know, but you're special, Miracle. You may not think you're perfect, but to some people, you're everything they've wished for, whether they realized it or not.”

“You'd better close those lips before I'm tempted to kiss them and really give you something to be all hot and bothered about.”