In order to have bliss you have to be able to accept all the parts of the other, all the wildness and the darkness. You have to be able to hold on.

But be careful; sand is already broken but glass breaks. The shoes are for dancing, not running away.

This was not a fearie tale. This was not the movies. This was life. It hurt more. It was excruciating. It was excruciatingly beautiful.

She wished she had a little yellow house of her own, with a flower box full of real flowers and herbs – pansies and rosemary – and a sweet lover who would swing dance with her in the evenings and cook pasta and read poetry aloud.

Besides, secretly, without knowing it herself, she had been waiting for a Beast to go to.

Under the pink Harlequin sunglasses strawberry dangling charms, and sugar-frosted eyeshadow she was really almost beautiful.

You must reach inside yourselves where I live like a story, not old, not young laughing at my own sorrow, weeping pearls at weddings, wielding a torch to melt sand into something clear and bright.