We all just keep moving, September. We keep moving until we stop.

Hats change everything. September knew this with all her being, deep in the place where she knew her own name, and that her mother would still love her even though she hadn’t waved goodbye. For one day her father had put on a hat with golden things on it and suddenly he hadn’t been her father anymore, he had been a soldier, and he had left. Hats have power. Hats can change you into someone else.

I don’t want to be a Princess,” she said finally. “You can’t make me be one.” She knew very well what became of Princesses, as Princesses often get books written about them. Either terrible things happened to them, such as kidnappings and curses and pricking fingers and getting poisoned and locked up in towers, or else they just waited around till the Prince finished with the story and got around to marrying her. Either way, September wanted nothing to do with Princessing.

Temperament, you'll find, is highly dependent on time of day, weather, frequency of naps, and whether one has had enough to eat.

Temptation likes best those who think they have a natural immunity, for it may laugh all the harder when they succumb.

If one did not have at least a little luck, one would never survive childhood. But luck can be spent, like money; and lost, like a memory; and wasted, like a life.

All jobs are odd, or they would be games or naps or picnics.