A Wild Swan: And Other Tales

“She’s like a planet, don’t you think?”

The other replied, “No, she’s like a sick old lady.”

Each felt pleased by the proof of the other’s foolishness. Each boy, as their grandmother the queen sank away, thought of his own promising future; one because he had a poet’s eye and heart; the other because he was unsentimental and true.

It did not seem to occur to him that a fear might go unspoken, that anxiety could be masked.

He would be harmed forever by his decision to let her take his place. But that’s what he did. He would, over time, discover more and various ways to blame his daughter. He’d sink with a certain sensuousness into the image of himself as an awful man, a heartless man, which would prove, over time, an easier man for him to be.

Only Beauty understood what a single rose might signify, what acts a rose could inspire, if you lived without hope. If you were a beast confined to a castle, or a girl confined to an obscure and unprosperous village.

Are you an asshole or a fool?, those being his only two categories.

Sometimes the fabric that separates us tears just enough for love to shine through.

magic is sometimes all about knowing where the secret door is, and how to open it.

the fact that the words “might have married” mean only that she was (as Mr. White points out) one of a dozen girls with whom Tom Barkin flirted shamelessly, seems to strengthen rather than deter her convictions about renounced possibility

That lesson would be: Mothers, try to be realistic about your imbecilic sons, no matter how charming their sly little grins, no matter how heartbreaking the dark-gold tousle of their hair. If you romanticize them, if you insist on virtues they clearly lack, if you persist in your blind desire to have raised a wise child, one who’ll be helpful in your old age … don’t be surprised

You went through three husbands, and joked to your girlfriends that with each marriage you’d thought you’d reached bottom, only to find that the elevator of love went to still lower floors.