A long time ago in a kingdom by the sea there lived a princess as tall and bright as a sunflower.

There is the great lesson of 'Beauty and the Beast,' that a thing must be loved before it is lovable.

There is nothing so nice as supposing. It's almost like being a fairy. If you suppose anything hard enough it seems as if it were real.

Am I the same cold, ragged damp Sara? And to think I used to pretend and pretend and wish there were fairies! The one thing I always wanted was to see a fairy story come true. I am living in a fairy story. I feel as if I might be a fairy myself, and able to turn things into anything else.

The best way to be a child again is to read fairy tales.

The piano—that, too, was an adventure. A little girl tried to learn to play it. Her mother insisted, forced her to sit there and practice. Nothing came of it; stubbornness won out in the end, the stubbornness that protects us from the will of others, that defends our right to live our life the way we want. Even if it means life will turn out worse than anyone planned, will turn into a poor life—but it'll be one's own, however it is, even without music, even without talent.