I am a practical girl, and a life is only so long. It should be spent in as much peace and good eating and good reading as possible and no undue excitement. That is all I am after.

I savor bitterness - it is born of experience. It is the privilege of one who has truly lived.

I'm not lost, because I haven't any idea where to go that I might get lost on the way to. I'd like to get lost, because then I'd know where I was going, you see.

You know, in Fairyland-Above they said that the underworld was full of devils and dragons. But it isn’t so at all! Folk are just folk, wherever you go, and it’s only a nasty sort of person who thinks a body’s a devil just because they come from another country and have different notions. It’s wild and quick and bold down here, but I like wild things and quick things and bold things, too.

It is best in the end to let women see to their own vengeance.

The future is a messy, motley business, little girl.

Once more September marveled that even the Dodo knew what she wanted to be when she was grown. She simply could not think what she herself might do. September expected that destinies, which is how she thought of professions, simply landed upon one like a crown, and ever after no one questioned or fretted over it, being sure of one’s own use in the world. It was only that somehow her crown had not yet appeared. She did hope it would hurry up.