Everybody's strange everywhere. Most of the trick of being a social animal is pretending you're not. But who do you fool? Nobody worth talking to.

Respect me. Be proud, and if you love me, a little afraid, because love so often looks like fear. We are alike. We are alike.

September knew a number of curse words, most of which she heard the girls at school saying in the bathrooms, in hushed voices, as if the words could make things happen just by being spoken, as if they were fairy words, and had to be handled just so.

Humanity lived many years and ruled the earth, sometimes wisely, sometimes well, but mostly neither.

Love rarely waits for permission.

What is the world but a boxing ring where fools and devils put up their fists?

It’s been me all along,” said September slowly. “Me who gave up my shadow, me who went down into Fairyland-Below and Fairyland-Lower-Than-That to wake up the Prince. Me who shot the poor Minotaur. You oughtn’t just hand the whole business over the moment a Prince comes on the scene. I’ve got to see it through, don’t you see? The Hollow Queen is hollow because she’s missing the part of her that’s me. We’ve got to come together again. And he can’t do a thing about that.