“The flowers were so beautiful, so delicate and unthreatening, but they choked everything around them.”

“And the worst thing was, there were no mirrors out there in the wild, so the princess was left wondering whether she in fact was still beautiful... or if the fall had changed the story completely.”

“Maybe the natural world wasn't so jaw-droppingly horrible, appaling, nasty, vile. Sometimes nature could be quite sweet, really, as delicate as a confused and horny butterfly.”

“So, there was this beautiful princess. She was locked in a high tower(...)She was stuck up there(...)So the only thing was to jump.”

“With everything so perfect, reality seemed somehow fragile, as if the slightest interruption could imperil her pretty future... all of it felt as tenuous as a soap bubble, shivering and empty.”

“Around the outskirts of the city, cut off from town by the black oval of the river, everything was in darkness. Everyone ugly was in bed by now.”

“That's how things were out here in the wild, she was learning. Dangerous or beautiful. Or both.”