She couldn't disappoint the whole village. There were no wallscreens here, no newsfeeds or satellites bands, and touring soccer teams were no doubt few and far between. (...), that made stories a valuable commodity, and it probably wasn't very often that a stranger dropped in from the sky.

Becoming pretty doesn't just change the way you look," she said. "No," David said. "It changes the way you think.

Your personality - the real you inside - was the price of beauty.

Tally turned away. Five minutes was suddenly too long to stand here, eyes burning, unable to cry.

Nature didn't need an operation to be beautiful. It just was.

Sometimes, the hardest thing was doing nothing.

You’d best ask the lady boffin, sir,” Newkirk said. “Midshipmen aren’t allowed to have opinions.