Maybe this was how you stayed sane in wartime: a handful of noble deeds amid the chaos.

Once you told yourself a story enough times, it was so easy to keep on believing it.

Good books make you ask questions. Bad readers want everything answered.

And it was pretty clear that no prince was showing up, or at least that he was really late.

The Internet is global and seemingly omniscient, while iPods and phones are all microscopic workings encased in plastic blobjects. Compare that to a steam engine, where you can watch the pistons move and feel the heat of its boilers. I think we miss that visceral appeal of the machine.

there was a beautiful princess with a prince kissing her lips only the prince was totally ugly

Sometimes it felt like her life was a series of falls from ever-greater heights.