Princess Ben Quotes

“Every fairy tale, it seems, concludes with the bland phrase "happily ever after." Yet every couple I have ever known would agree that nothing about marriage is forever happy. There are moments of bliss, to be sure, and lengthy spans of satisfied companionship. Yet these come at no small effort, and the girl who reads such fiction dreaming her troubles will end ere she departs the altar is well advised to seek at once a rational women to set her straight.”
― Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Princess Ben

“With that, I hurled the slipper at him, not caring if I caused his decapitation. (I did not.) Marshaling what little dignity I yet possessed, I stomped down the corridor - challenging indeed with one shoe - and around the corner. I lay awake for hours. The prince had no right, not one, to indict me so, and if I had held the slightest hope of the book's assistance, I would have climbed at once to my wizard room for a spell with which to punish him. Death, perhaps, or humiliation. A croaking frog would be nice, particularly a frog that retained Florian's dark eyes. I should keep it in a box and poke it occasionally with a stick; that would be satisfying indeed.”
― Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Princess Ben

“What is a staircase, but a corridor improved by elevation?”
― Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Princess Ben

“And have your mother put my head on a stake? Do you have any notion what that would do to my handsome good looks?”
― Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Princess Ben

“I could not but wonder at the queen's unprecedented civility, until I realized with a flush of shame that it was my own improved behavior that motivated hers. So it is that we in life determine our own treatment.”
― Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Princess Ben

“Despite all my public misconduct, in the past year, I had learned the Elemental spells, the Doppelschläferin, and the preparation and flying of a magic broom; I had survived two months as prisoner of war, saving the life of captain Johanne in the process; I had escaped the dungeons of Fortress Drachensbett, and after an arduous journey successfully reunited with my double, so preserving her, and all Montagne, from Prince Flonian's rapacity, I would somehow master the despicable art of being a princess.”
― Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Princess Ben

“I ultimately decided to hold my tongue and settle instead for the comfort of ignorance. Not knowing the truth, I retained hope, and that hope I held like a smooth warm stone against my heart.”
― Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Princess Ben

“Why was it that jam always coated me so?”
― Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Princess Ben

“With every morsel I consumed, I was informed that princes most love slender young ladies. As I was as interested in a prince’s love as in sticking my fish fork into my ear, I reacted to this by cleaning my plate ever more thoroughly.”
― Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Princess Ben

“Bend like the sapling you are. With time we shall find your oaken core.”
― Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Princess Ben

“The truth that our futures are so often determined not by some grand design or deliberate strategy but by an ordinary run-of-the-mill head cold.”
― Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Princess Ben

“Does this smack of magic to you? Because allow me to inform you, my handsome young prince, that this be not enchantment – it be work!” With that I hurled my slipper at him, not caring if I caused his decapitation. (I did not.) Marshalling what little dignity I yet possessed, I stomped down the corridor – challenging indeed with one shoe – and around the corner.”
― Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Princess Ben

“Night soil oozed onto my cloak, and I wondered why all my adventures involved foul odour. Why could I not for once frolic in a meadow of flowers, or escape in a hamper of fresh laundry? No, I must endure night soil and prison cells and unwashed soldiers…”
― Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Princess Ben

“That is the delusion of which I speak! You wish the joys of true love upon every milkmaid and stable boy in your land, and yet you consign yourself and another to lives of pure misery that you might possess a well-proportioned ballroom.”
― Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Princess Ben

“The day of the ball was spent preparing me much as one prepares a goose for Christmas, with the same ultimate effect.”
― Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Princess Ben

“My downfall, inevitably, was triggered by food.”
― Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Princess Ben

“How could Paolo think the queen and her ilk were my people? I had no more relation to them than a pigeon does to a flock of swans – or a vortex of vultures, which the castle’s denizens better resembled in both attire and attitude.”
― Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Princess Ben

“So it was that my life passed from the joyous realm of heaven to the choking and inescapable tortures of hell.”
― Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Princess Ben

“A croaking frog would be nice, particularly a frog that retained Florian’s dark eyes. I should keep it in a box and poke it occasionally with a stick; that would be satisfying indeed.”
― Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Princess Ben

“With time, when I was very old and in my twenties, I might find a man to love, not one forced upon me…”
― Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Princess Ben

“I trust you are enjoying your stay in our castle?” I asked at last. “Would that I were, Your Highness. But I am afraid my sleep last night was quite troubled. This morning I identified the source of my bruises” – here he reached into a pocket of his waistcoat – “as a pea that had been tucked beneath my mattress.”
― Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Princess Ben

“Better I would have been at pulling parsnips out of my nose than charming any man, even if I so desired it, even if I quadrupled my studies in her unique curriculum.”
― Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Princess Ben

“Finally I halted, my cloak soiled with grease and jam. Why was it that jam always coated me so?”
― Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Princess Ben

“I could not help but notice that in this regard the book, inanimate though it was, cared more for my welfare than any human in the castle.”
― Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Princess Ben

“No matter how I prayed, no fairy godmother appeared. No elf or leprechaun or world-weary wizard materialised to provide the secret weapon against my foe. I remained alone in a mouse-infested cell, empty but for a pallet and the nightdress into which I now had to struggle.”
― Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Princess Ben

“The situation collapsed completely at dinner one September evening. Perhaps it was the full moon that drove me to madness, or the gnawing, relentless emptiness of my heart. Whatever the trigger, the powder had been well packed, and my explosion, though shocking, was not altogether unexpected.”
― Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Princess Ben

“I mulled on the tower-bound princess whose lover employed her hair as rope. My own curly locks – one of my better features, I will admit, better being a relative term – hung just past my shoulders, and barely draped over the windowsill.”
― Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Princess Ben

“A princess,” (Queen Sophia) would proclaim, “requires a graceful and willowy carriage, not the appetite of a swineherd.”
― Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Princess Ben

“As for the queen, I had no more interest in her company than in plunging my face into a nest of hornets.”
― Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Princess Ben

“Lord Frederick had been a stalwart member of the Montagne court since at least the time of my grandfather; this I knew. Even more, he had the marvellous ability to pull peppermint drops from my ears, which used to entertain me for hours.”
― Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Princess Ben