“Once she'd thought all the knowledge in the world was contained in the princess academy's thirteen books. Now she faced thousands. She wondered if she should curtsy as if she were entering a chapel.”

“She was not who she'd thought she was. No one was.”

“What she had long believed was not true, and now the world was wide open to discover what was.It is like all my life I thought the sky was green.”

“She was born Anidori-Kiladra Talianna Isilee, Crown Princess of Kildenree, and she did not open her eyes for three days.”

“A few minutes later, Miss Charming gasped. But then, Miss Charming gasped a lot. She gasped when someone shut a door too loudly; she gasped when there were sausages for breakfast. She sometimes gasped and then coughed, as if she'd meant to cough from the beginning and gotten the two confused.”

“Well do I remember the first night we met, how you questioned my opinion that first impressions are perfect. You were right to do so, of course, but even then I suspected what I've come to believe most passionately these past weeks: from that first moment, I knew you were a dangerous woman, and I was in great peril of falling in love."She thought she should say something witty here. She said, "Really?”

“But when she turned her back to the lights, she saw that the night was so dark...She could not see the stars. The world felt as high as the depthless night sky and deeper than she could know. She understood, suddenly and keenly, that she was too small to run away, and she sat on the damp ground and cried.”