When I was 11, I had an Ugly Sister birthday party. All my idea. Most girls want to be a fairy or a princess, but there I am with beauty spots and fur and fluorescent pink kiss-curls.

Isn't that what every girl dreamed? That she'd wake and find herself a princess? or blessed with magical powers and a grand destiny. Maybe there were people who lived those lives, maybe this girl was one of them but what about the rest of us? What about the nobodies and the nothings, the invisible girls? We learn to hold our heads as if we wear crowns, we learn to ring magic from the ordinary, that's how you survived when you weren't chosen, when there was no royal bloods in your veins, when the world owed you nothing, you demanded something of it anyway!

Your mistake is that you've concluded life is short, so you treat it as if it's precious, like a pretty little princess. Bullshit! Everyone's life is short. Quit feeling sorry for yourself. Fuck it. Treat it like a cheap hooker. Ask crazy shit from it, and you'll get more out of life than you could have ever wanted, imagined, or deserved.

being born a princess is all right, but behaving like one can be dangerous.

I was ensorcelled from the moment you spoke with that sharp tongue of yours, my lioness, my princess of ice, my torture, and my salvation.

The least we each ought to do for someone who treats us like a king or a queen is to treat them like a prince or a princess.

I have been writing for as long as I can remember. Fed by the books my parents read aloud to me, when I was little I would wander around my yard imagining I was a bird, or a runaway princess, or a fairy; and I would make up narratives about what I did. That pastime blossomed into dictating stories to my family and teachers until I learned to write well myself. I have always loved to draw. I have never been sure which hobby I am more passionate about. Now, as I write this, I realize that I would not love drawing if I didn't make up stories in my mind about the things I draw. Both of these passions come from my need to capture what I see without destroying it, to clarify images and make them mine, and to express to the world the love I have for the things I perceive.

Everything in creation has its appointed painter or poet and remains in bondage like the princess in the fairy tale 'til its appropriate liberator comes to set it free.

If you seem to be happy in this place of solitude, you will acquire a great reputation for wisdom, and I know, by my own experience, that under the cloak of a great reputation it is possible to hide whole treasures of folly. ("The Story of Princess Zulkais and the Prince Kalilah")

"Life is made of moments. and choices. Not all of them matter, or have any lasting impact. Skipping class in favor of a taste of freedom, picking a prom dress because of the way it transforms you into a princess in the mirror. Even the nights you steal away from an open window, tiptoe silent to the end of the driveway, where darkened headlights and the pull of something unknown beckon. These are all small choices, really. Insignificant as soon as they're made. Innocent.

"And the priests looked down into the pit of injustice and they turned their faces away and said, 'Our kingdom is not as the kingdom of this world. Our life on earth is but a pilgrimage. The soul lives on humility and patience,' at the same time screwing the poor from their last centime. They settled down among their treasures and ate and drank with princes and to the starving they said, 'Suffer. Suffer as he suffered on the cross for it is the will of God.'

Bite me, Goth princess," Shane called from the back. "Not literally or anything.

The Princess Andromeda?

Well, spit on my empty grave--if it ain't the attack of the Disney princesses!

"How should we be able to forget those ancient myths that are at the beginning of all peoples, the myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into princesses; perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us.

Whatever comes," she said, "cannot alter one thing. If I am a princess in rags and tatters, I can be a princess inside. It would be easy to be a princess if I were dressed in cloth of gold, but it is a great deal more of a triumph to be one all the time when no one knows it.

"Once upon a time there was a young prince who believed in all things but three. He did not believe in princesses, he did not believe in islands, he did not believe in God. His father, the king, told him that such things did not exist. As there were no princesses or islands in his father's domains, and no sign of God, the young prince believed his father.

"She was his princess. No. She was his Goddess. With her golden skin and golden hair. She was his light. His life. His everything.

In fairy tales, the princesses kiss the frogs, and the frogs become princes. In real life, the pricesses kiss princes, and the princes turn into frogs.

He's not your prince charming if he doesn't make sure you know that you're his princess.

Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.

Behaving like a princess is work. It's not just about looking beautiful or wearing a crown. It's more about how you are inside.

Were there peace and justice in the Middle East the Arabs would no more need their tinhorn dictators than they would their corpulent princes.

My mom won't let anyone treat me like a little princess.