“Oranges were the prince's favorite fruit. He always peeled tem himself, and took some pleasure in tearing the bright skin away to expose the soft wedges within. He liked the spray of tiny citrus beads, he liked the tangy taste, and above all he liked that an orange is a fruit to be eaten piece by piece.”

“You can't eat the orange and throw the peel away - a man is not a piece of fruit.”

“Some days are just born bad. You know the type. The kind you want to sweep into your palm like spilled salt and toss over your left shoulder, hoping that if you don't look back nothing worse will happen.”

“If you would like to know how easy it is to overlook evil, Petra could tell you: it is the easiest thing in the world.”

“Truth was like an exploding star: violent, glitteringly beautiful. Now that I had seen it, felt it, it was impossible to settle for anything less.”

“I have three younger siblings, and used to tell them an awful lot of lies when they were growing up. The best thing about being a writer is that now I can say that my lies were all in the name of literary creativity. Unfortunately, my brothers and sister don’t believe me.”

“Fairy tales are rife with transformation — from beast to handsome prince, from dirty scullery maid to well-dressed princess. It is perhaps no coincidence that nature in the Cinderella stories facilitates transformation, for nature itself is a changeable thing, from season to season, from a sunny day to rain, from an egg to a flying bird in a matter of weeks.(Source: "The Nature of Cinderella".)”