Disney Princess Quotes

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

But they say if you dream a thing more than once, it's sure to come true.

I look at the blanked-out faces of the other passengers--hoisting their briefcases, their backpacks, shuffling to disembark--and I think of what Hobie said: beauty alters the grain of reality. And I keep thinking too of the more conventional wisdom: namely, that the pursuit of pure beauty is a trap, a fast track to bitterness and sorrow, that beauty has to be wedded to something more meaningful. Only what is that thing? Why am I made the way I am? Why do I care about all the wrong things, and nothing at all for the right ones? Or, to tip it another way: how can I see so clearly that everything I love or care about is illusion, and yet--for me, anyway--all that's worth living for lies in that charm? A great sorrow, and one that I am only beginning to understand: we don't get to choose our own hearts. We can't make ourselves want what's good for us or what's good for other people. We don't get to choose the people we are. Because--isn't it drilled into us constantly, from childhood on, an unquestioned platitude in the culture--? From William Blake to Lady Gaga, from Rousseau to Rumi to Tosca to Mister Rogers, it's a curiously uniform message, accepted from high to low: when in doubt, what to do? How do we know what's right for us? Every shrink, every career counselor, every Disney princess knows the answer: "Be yourself." "Follow your heart." Only here's what I really, really want someone to explain to me. What if one happens to be possessed of a heart that can't be trusted--? What if the heart, for its own unfathomable reasons, leads one willfully and in a cloud of unspeakable radiance away from health, domesticity, civic responsibility and strong social connections and all the blandly-held common virtues and instead straight toward a beautiful flare of ruin, self-immolation, disaster?...If your deepest self is singing and coaxing you straight toward the bonfire, is it better to turn away? Stop your ears with wax? Ignore all the perverse glory your heart is screaming at you? Set yourself on the course that will lead you dutifully towards the norm, reasonable hours and regular medical check-ups, stable relationships and steady career advancement the New York Times and brunch on Sunday, all with the promise of being somehow a better person? Or...is it better to throw yourself head first and laughing into the holy rage calling your name?

I’m not leaving,” Sam said, his eyes fixed on the boy he was holding. “Not until Disney Princess here apologizes, or his head comes off, one of the two.

I'd rather die tomorrow than live a hundred years without knowing you.

When did I turn into a needywhiny angsty idiot who needed to be swept off her feet? She snorted then started running again, forcing me into a brief sprint to catch up. We're conditioned from birth she said. I swear to god,if I ever have a daughter I'll ban all of the Disney princesses from the house. Except Mulan. She kicks ass.

So Mackenzie, have you decided what you want to be when you grow up?" "Yep. I wanna be a princess. And i wanna mary a prince and live in a castle." I need to talk to my sister. Disney is dangerous.

Not even a little?” Hunter whispered as we climbed under my Disney princess sheets. “It’s too weird. I can’t have sex on a princess’ face with my mom down the hall sleeping. I just have to draw the line.

Because--isn't it drilled into us constantly, from childhood on, an unquestioned platitude in the culture--? From William Blake to Lady Gaga, from Rousseau to Rumi to Tosca to Mister Rogers, it's a curiously uniform message, accepted from high to low: when in doubt, what to do? How do we know what's right for us? Every shrink, every career counselor, every Disney princess knows the answer: "Be yourself." "Follow your heart." Only here's what I really, really want someone to explain to me. What if one happens to be possessed of a heart that can't be trusted--? What if the heart, for its own unfathomable reasons, leads one willfully and in a cloud of unspeakable radiance away from health, domesticity, civic responsibility and strong social connections and all the blandly-held common virtues and instead straight toward a beautiful flare of ruin, self-immolation, disaster?...If your deepest self is singing and coaxing you straight toward the bonfire, is it better to turn away? Stop your ears with wax? Ignore all the perverse glory your heart is screaming at you? Set yourself on the course that will lead you dutifully towards the norm, reasonable hours and regular medical check-ups, stable relationships and steady career advancement the New York Times and brunch on Sunday, all with the promise of being somehow a better person? Or...is it better to throw yourself head first and laughing into the holy rage calling your name?

Anna: Ash, I don't have anything planned with my Mother... She's dead. Ashley: What? Anna: She died when I was seven. She drowned. It's just my Dad and me. I didn't tell you before because I just wanted a fresh start here, because before I moved, everybody knew about it and... I'm sorry. Ashley: ....... You're like a Disney Princess!

I recommend Avon Skin-So-Soft. It’s a bath product. It smells like someone fed a Disney Princess through a juicer, but it works better than anything else on the market.

Eventually, I stopped dressing like I was a Disney character, but the desire to live the life of a fairytale princess never really left me.

Great, I’m an apocalyptic Disney princess.

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

What are you!? A Disney princess?” Ashley’s annoyance powered semi-shout surprised the room. She dropped her knitting to her lap and glared at me, apparently sincerely perturbed by Janie’s revelation. “Get over yourself! We all have to fall in love more than once—even if it’s with the same person.

Langdon watched the phone plummet down and splash into the dark waters of the Nervión River. As it disappeared beneath the surface, he felt a pang of loss, staring back after it as the boat raced on. “Robert,” Ambra whispered, “just remember the wise words of Disney’s Princess Elsa.” Langdon turned. “I’m sorry?” Ambra smiled softly. “Let it go.

I can't even fathom myself from twenty-four hours ago. I was so busy following my rotten little heart, Disney princess-style. I did end up in a palace, so that's cool.

There is only one princess in the Disney tales, one girl who gets to be exalted. Princesses may confide in a sympathetic mouse or teacup, but they do not have girlfriends. God forbid Snow White should give Sleeping Beauty a little support. Let's review: princesses avoid female bonding. Their goals are to be saved by a prince, get married, and be taken care of the rest of their lives.

When I was young and I was forced to watch Disney films, I would fast forward the good guys, wasn't interested in princes and princesses, only by the villains.

Robert,” Ambra whispered, “just remember the wise words of Disney’s Princess Elsa.” Langdon turned. “I’m sorry?” Ambra smiled softly. “Let it go.

She was a Disney Princess and Rider the rogue bad guy.

Any other Disney movies?” I was tempting my luck here. Aaron’s expression remained serious. “All of them.” Shit. “Even Frozen? Tangled? The Princess Frog?” I asked, and he nodded. “I love animated movies. They take my mind off things.” He dipped his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “Disney, Pixar … I’m a big fan.” This was too much. First, he’d opened up about his childhood earlier today, and now, this. I wanted to ask how and why, but there was a more pressing issue. “What’s your favorite?” Please don’t say the one that will send my heart into cardiac arrest. Please don’t say it. “Up.” Fuck. He had said it. My heart struggled there for a moment. And that little spot that had been softening throughout the night got a little bigger.

...I have big dreams, too. I used to think that made me different and strange. But when I came here and found all these books, I realized there are places in the world where I belong, even if I haven't found them yet.

I tried to stay away from the classic Disney princess movies. In addition to featuring a lot of unempowered women, those movies are just so white. White people and stories about white people are not bad, it’s just that when you live in America, everything is so inherently white. I don’t want you to grow up wishing you were white and having that inform all of your decisions later on in life. I want you to be proud of having black hair and Asian features.

Now, my sister has been called a lot of things:sweet, kind, a living Disney princess, but none of those things imply that she would ever date someone just for his money.

Destruction was calm, almost content- would he next break out in song like a Disney princess?

From William Blake to Lady Gaga, from Rousseau to Rumi to Tosca to Mister Rogers, it’s a curiously uniform message, accepted from high to low: when in doubt, what to do? How do we know what’s right for us? Every shrink, every career counselor, every Disney princess knows the answer: “Be yourself.” “Follow your heart.” Only here’s what I really, really want someone to explain to me. What if one happens to be possessed of a heart that can’t be trusted—? What if the heart, for its own unfathomable reasons, leads one willfully and in a cloud of unspeakable radiance away from health, domesticity, civic responsibility and strong social connections and all the blandly-held common virtues and instead straight towards a beautiful flare of ruin, self-immolation, disaster?

More than 300 children have been hospitalized worldwide since The Princess and the Frog was released. They were hospitalized with salmonella which they contracted from kissing frogs.

A great sorrow, and one that I am only beginning to understand: we don’t get to choose our own hearts. We can’t make ourselves want what’s good for us or what’s good for other people. We don’t get to choose the people we are. Because—isn’t it drilled into us constantly, from childhood on, an unquestioned platitude in the culture—? From William Blake to Lady Gaga, from Rousseau to Rumi to Tosca to Mister Rogers, it’s a curiously uniform message, accepted from high to low: when in doubt, what to do? How do we know what’s right for us? Every shrink, every career counselor, every Disney princess knows the answer: “Be yourself.” “Follow your heart.” Only here’s what I really, really want someone to explain to me. What if one happens to be possessed of a heart that can’t be trusted—? What if the heart, for its own unfathomable reasons, leads one willfully and in a cloud of unspeakable radiance away from health, domesticity, civic responsibility and strong social connections and all the blandly-held common virtues and instead straight towards a beautiful flare of ruin self-immolation, disaster? Is Kitsey right? If your deepest self is singing and coaxing you straight toward the bonfire, is it better to turn away? Stop your ears with wax? Ignore all the perverse glory your heart is screaming at you?

No creativity. Trash? Did she steal that from a Disney show?

The calories in natural, unprocessed, real foods are more than just calories. They’re full of more magic than a Disney Princess convention.

That Disney princess you’ve got at home is getting you all emotional.

Exposing a young child to the realities of love and death is far less dangerous than exposing them to the lie of the happy ending. Children of the Disney princess era grew up with a whitewashed version of reality filled with animal sidekicks and unrealistic expectations.

The thing about fairy tales is that the princess finds her prince, but there's generally a price to pay. A compromise of some kind is required for happily ever after. The woman in the fairy tale is generally the one who pays the price, which is such a rotten deal. This seems to be the nature of sacrifice in most matters.

You look like a Disney Princess.” “A Disney Princess?” “Yeah,” he whispers roughly. “One of those princesses who look like they might give you a BJ if you play your cards right but in the end she probably won’t.

KitKat 13:18:45: Who would your ideal prince be? Your childhood friend, Prince Charming, or a strong warrior? Gallows Humor 13:19:10: I don’t want to know which Disney Princess I am. I’ve told you before, stop doing online quizzes. Leave it. Gallows Humor 13:22:19: He would love me for myself. KitKat 13:22:57: Tell me about your dress.

I am a Princess. I am brave sometimes. I am scared sometimes. Sometimes, I am brave even when I am scared. I believe in loyalty and trust. I believe loyalty is built on trust. I try to be kind. I try to be generous. I am kind even when others are not so generous. I am a Princess. I think standing up for myself is important. I think standing up for others is more important. But standing with others is most important. I am a Princess. I believe compassion makes me strong. Kindness is power. And family is the tightest bond of all. I have heard I am beautiful. I know I am strong. I am a Princess. Long may I reign.

Because—isn’t it drilled into us constantly, from childhood on, an unquestioned platitude in the culture—? From William Blake to Lady Gaga, from Rousseau to Rumi to Tosca to Mister Rogers, it’s a curiously uniform message, accepted from high to low: when in doubt, what to do? How do we know what’s right for us? Every shrink, every career counselor, every Disney princess knows the answer: “Be yourself.” “Follow your heart.

You have a lot to explore beyond this cottage if you want to know everything about the world. Explore until your heart is full, Belle. And then explore some more.

Every shrink, every career counselor, every Disney princess knows the answer: “Be yourself.” “Follow your heart.

I keep forgetting - which Disney princess is it who solves all her own problems without trying to find a boyfriend?

I get one slice of dick and turn into a wide-eyed Disney princess.

and at least this isn’t some Disney princess that’ll give her body-image issues.

That's like a fairy-tale princess in a patrol car, huh? But hey, even, Disney princesses are toughening up these days. We're all capable of many things, right?

All that ran through my mind at her suggesstion was running through the park with a ton of turned Disney Princesses and the three little pigs hot on our trail.

You can’t possibly adopt stray French monsters; wherever would you put it?” “I have no idea,” she said. “It doesn’t appear to be in bad shape; honestly, I think someone’s been taking at least basic care of it—no mats or snarls, it’s a decent weight for its size, completely tame. It’s not a thoroughbred, though, which means either it’s an adopted stray or it’s been summoned, which is a little odd. God knows why anyone would bother doing that kind of magic, but whatever—I suppose Parisian monster fanciers have to get their jollies somehow. I think it’s come to visit, not to stow away in my suitcase.” “If this keeps up, you are going to be the most absurd Disney princess of all time,” Ruthven told her. “Instead of happy little bluebirds perching on your finger to sing duets, you will be hung about with monsters like a tree with monkeys, and it will thoroughly complicate your personal life.

This fear of needing a man to make us happy is a product of our bullshit Disney princess culture that also taught us a man can fall in love even if a sea witch stole the woman's voice. She was pretty damn awesome as a mermaid first!

...while epic fantasy is based on the fairy tale of the just war, that’s not one you’ll find in Grimm or Disney, and most will never recognize the shape of it. I think the fantasy genre pitches its tent in the medieval campground for the very reason that we even bother to write stories about things that never happened in the first place: because it says something subtle and true about our own world, something it is difficult to say straight out, with a straight face. Something you need tools to say, you need cheat codes for the human brain--a candy princess or a sugar-coated unicorn to wash down the sour taste of how bad things can really get. See, I think our culture has a slash running through the middle of it, too. Past/Future, Conservative/Liberal, Online/Offline. Virgin/Whore. And yes: Classical/Medieval. I think we’re torn between the Classical Narrative of Self and the Medieval Narrative of Self, between the choice of Achilles and Keep Calm and Carry On. The Classical internal monologue goes like this: do anything, anything, only don’t be forgotten. Yes, this one sacrificed his daughter on a slab at Aulis, that one married his mother and tore out his eyes, and oh that guy ate his kids in a pie. But you remember their names, don’t you? So it’s all good in the end. Give a Greek soul a choice between a short life full of glory and a name echoing down the halls of time and a long, gentle life full of children and a quiet sort of virtue, and he’ll always go down in flames. That’s what the Iliad is all about, and the Odyssey too. When you get to Hades, you gotta have a story to tell, because the rest of eternity is just forgetting and hoping some mortal shows up on a quest and lets you drink blood from a bowl so you can remember who you were for one hour. And every bit of cultural narrative in America says that we are all Odysseus, we are all Agamemnon, all Atreus, all Achilles. That we as a nation made that choice and chose glory and personal valor, and woe betide any inconvenient “other people” who get in our way. We tell the tales around the campfire of men who came from nothing to run dotcom empires, of a million dollars made overnight, of an actress marrying a prince from Monaco, of athletes and stars and artists and cowboys and gangsters and bootleggers and talk show hosts who hitched up their bootstraps and bent the world to their will. Whose names you all know. And we say: that can be each and every one of us and if it isn’t, it’s your fault. You didn’t have the excellence for it. You didn’t work hard enough. The story wasn’t about you, and the only good stories are the kind that have big, unignorable, undeniable heroes.

The night before, Belle had stayed up past her bedtime, making a few changes to her doll with her father's tools. She couldn't help it. Inspiration had struck. Her father always told her that when inspiration strikes, you must grab it.

My mother used to tell me, every time we were watching Cinderella, that Cinderella had the best attitude and that I should strive to be just like her. Later when I grew up, I resented my mother for teaching me that way, as I saw it as the reason why I often felt preyed on by people who were much more like the ugly stepsisters. But now, all of a sudden, I’ve realized that what my mom meant was that no matter how ugly people can be to you, no matter how rough they treat you, no matter how much their actions tempt you to become your worst— you should overcome them by never letting them steal your gentleness. People only win when they are able to take away your gentleness, your sweetness. But if you remember that you’re a princess, and they’re just not, at the end of the day you win! Still, my mom should have pointed me in the direction of Belle from Beauty and the Beast. Cinderella is fine, but had she taught me that Belle was the best way to be, I would have probably never grown to resent that. Belle always retained her gentleness but she could still beat up a pack of wolves at the same time and that’s the kind of princess I wanted to be like! Not to mention she loved books!

My Belle. I'm so proud of you. Look at what you created here." Belle blushed. "I didn't create it, Papa. It's Hugo's shop." "But you found the missing pieces," her father said. "And that's the mark of a dreamer and a doer. Otherwise known as an inventor.

In the rest of the story, Sleeping Beauty and the prince marry and have children. An ogress demands that the children and princess be cooked and served to her, though they are saved. Disney’s animated films also left out that part, agreeing with Huguette’s editing.

Exposing a young child to the realities of love and death is far less dangerous than exposing them to the lie of the happy ending. Children of the Disney princess era grew up with a whitewashed version of reality filled with animal sidekicks and unrealistic expectations. Mythologist Joseph Campbell wisely tells us to scorn the happy ending, “for the world as we know it, as we have seen it, yields but one ending: death, disintegration, dismemberment, and the crucifixion of our heart with the passing of the forms that we have loved.

Yeah, well you remember this big man. I’m the princess of The Fallen MC, not some sniffling Disney nitwit without the means to save herself. I’m a warrior princess, the kind that’ll cut off your balls and serve them for fuckin’ tea, you feel me? So next time you threaten me, why don’t you remember that?

We are a generation that is obsessed with nostalgia. Everything from the past is so readily available in ways that it never was before and because of that, western civilization will experience a period of arrested growth. The future holds fifty-year-old men and women running Disney Princess blogs. Bank on it.

Cinderella, until lately, has never been a passive dreamer waiting for rescue. The forerunners of the Ash-girl have all been hardy, active heroines who take their lives into their own hands and work out their own salvations .... Cinderella speaks to all of us in whatever skin we inhabit: the child mistreated, a princess or highborn lady in disguise bearing her trials with patience, fortitude, and determination. Cinderella makes intelligent decisions, for she knows that wishing solves nothing without concomitant action. We have each been that child. (Even boys and men share thatdream, as evidenced by the many Ash-boy variants.) It is the longing of any youngster sent supperless to bed or given less than a full share at Christmas. And of course it is the adolescent dream. To make Cinderella less than she is, an ill-treated but passive princess awaiting her rescue, cheapens our most cherished dreams and makes a mockery of the magic inside us all—the ability to change our own lives, the ability to control our own destinies. [The Walt Disney film] set a new pattern for Cinderella: a helpless, hapless, pitiable, useless heroine who has to be saved time and time again by the talking mice and birds because she is “off in a world of dreams.” It is a Cinderella who is not recognized by her prince until she is magically back in her ball gown, beribboned and bejewelled. Poor Cinderella. Poor us.

From William Blake to Lady Gaga, from Rousseau to Rumi to Tosca to Mister Rogers, it’s a curiously uniform message, accepted from high to low: when in doubt, what to do? How do we know what’s right for us? Every shrink, every career counselor, every Disney princess knows the answer: “Be yourself.” “Follow your heart.

White noise, impersonal roar. Deadening incandescence of the boarding terminals. But even these soul-free, sealed-off places are drenched with meaning, spangled and thundering with it. Sky Mall. Portable stereo systems. Mirrored isles of Drambuie and Tanqueray and Chanel No. 5. I look at the blanked-out faces of the other passengers—hoisting their briefcases, their backpacks, shuffling to disembark—and I think of what Hobie said: beauty alters the grain of reality. And I keep thinking too of the more conventional wisdom: namely, that the pursuit of pure beauty is a trap, a fast track to bitterness and sorrow, that beauty has to be wedded to something more meaningful. Only what is that thing? Why am I made the way I am? Why do I care about all the wrong things, and nothing at all for the right ones? Or, to tip it another way: how can I see so clearly that everything I love or care about is illusion, and yet—for me, anyway—all that’s worth living for lies in that charm? A great sorrow, and one that I am only beginning to understand: we don’t get to choose our own hearts. We can’t make ourselves want what’s good for us or what’s good for other people. We don’t get to choose the people we are. Because—isn’t it drilled into us constantly, from childhood on, an unquestioned platitude in the culture—? From William Blake to Lady Gaga, from Rousseau to Rumi to Tosca to Mister Rogers, it’s a curiously uniform message, accepted from high to low: when in doubt, what to do? How do we know what’s right for us? Every shrink, every career counselor, every Disney princess knows the answer: “Be yourself.” “Follow your heart.

Robert,” Ambra whispered, “just remember the wise words of Disney’s Princess Elsa.” Langdon turned. “I’m sorry?” Ambra smiled softly. “Let it go.

She thought about their adventures together. How he had never given up on her. How he had forced her on. How he had constantly, annoyingly remained cheerful and upbeat in any situation. How he had killed demons and always talked about his stupid horse and ate porridge that he hated. No, she hadn't fallen in love with him on sight the second time around. It had taken a few days.

I’m just saying. It took how many years for Disney to give all those little black girls their own princess? You think it’s right for Violet to want something they’ve been waiting on forever?

You don't look like a princess at all. You look like the more beautiful stepsister in a Disney movie. The underdog who gets the prince at the end. The one who wasn't born with the title, but earned it.

I imagine the field day we’d have with this in gender studies class. Our desks in a circle, we’d huddle forward and rant: So this is the baseline of femininity. The place where being bestowed certain chromosomes will ultimately take you. This is the dream that’s been pounded into us. Find the guy. Find the dress. Or hell, maybe the other way around. The Disney Princesses told us so. But this isn’t college. This is my job.

One old myth says that faeries would sometimes steal human children and replace them with faerie changelings. So if you wake up one day and your brother or sister is acting like a jerk, they might have been swapped by faeries.

To most people today, the name Snow White evokes visions of dwarfs whistling as they work, and a wide–eyed, fluttery princess singing, "Some day my prince will come." (A friend of mine claims this song is responsible for the problems of a whole generation of American women.) Yet the Snow White theme is one of the darkest and strangest to be found in the fairy tale canon — a chilling tale of murderous rivalry, adolescent sexual ripening, poisoned gifts, blood on snow, witchcraft, and ritual cannibalism. . .in short, not a tale originally intended for children's tender ears. Disney's well–known film version of the story, released in 1937, was ostensibly based on the German tale popularized by the Brothers Grimm. Originally titled "Snow–drop" and published in Kinder–und Hausmarchen in 1812, the Grimms' "Snow White" is a darker, chillier story than the musical Disney cartoon, yet it too had been cleaned up for publication, edited to emphasize the good Protestant values held by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. (...) Variants of Snow White were popular around the world long before the Grimms claimed it for Germany, but their version of the story (along with Walt Disney's) is the one that most people know today. Elements from the story can be traced back to the oldest oral tales of antiquity, but the earliest known written version was published in Italy in 1634.

Anthropologie is not butch, phantom or otherwise. It is Disney with a slightly more sophisticated but no less carefully engineered aesthetic. It is to adult women what princesses are to little girls. It is a twirling motion in the form of an international brand.

Brenda Chapman She studied character animation at CalArts, and a few years later found herself exactly where she'd always dreamed: working on animated films for Disney in Los Angeles. She soon discovered that she was one of the very few women animators there. "That's when I realized why princesses in their films were so helpless. They had all been created by men." she recalls. She promised herself that she would create a new type of princess: strong, independent, and... "...Brave" she thought. "What a great name for a film!

I was worried about you, Ivy-Divy. You slept like you were a Disney princess who ate a rotten apple.” I arched a brow as I scratched the kitten above its tail. “I think you mean a poisoned apple.” “Whatever. Same difference. Prince Charming over there couldn’t wake you with a kiss,” he said. “That’s all I know.” “You’re going to need more than a Prince Charming to wake you when I knock your ass unconscious,” Ren said with little heat behind the threat, watching Dixon as he curled into a little ball and promptly went to sleep.

If we put aside the hatred, intolerance and bigotry this was a truly magical and enchanting era. You see how even Arabic Genies are very like ours. Ours live in a bottle or a lamp and by rubbing the lamp we allow the Genie to escape, for which he grants us three wishes – the biggest castle, the most beautiful princess and an unlimited amount of gold are usually favourites. But unlike the giant, blue-skinned, muscular Genies westerners are familiar with through Disney films, the Arabic Djinni are often invisible, although they have the power to shape-shift to just about any form they like, even human. Many people still believe they are with us today, although mostly living in deserts, mountains and caves. Many western soldiers have reported seeing them on night exercises in the Middle East.

I’d wanted love ever since I was a cookie-cutter little girl being brainwashed by cookie-cutter Disney movies about cookie-cutter princes and princesses falling into cookie-cutter love and then prancing off to their cookie-cutter castles to live out their cookie-cutter lives.

Every shrink, every career counselor, every Disney princess knows the answer: “Be yourself.” “Follow your heart.” Only here’s what I really, really want someone to explain to me. What if one happens to be possessed of a heart that can’t be trusted—? What if the heart, for its own unfathomable reasons, leads one willfully and in a cloud of unspeakable radiance away from health, domesticity, civic responsibility and strong social connections and all the blandly-held common virtues and instead straight towards a beautiful flare of ruin, self-immolation, disaster

At least the more modern princesses had the guts to do something aside from clean and wait to be rescued. They armed themselves and tried to provide good role models to impressionable girl tykes. It riled some innate feminist... that the princesses were strongest when they were acting like the men...

In a more perfect world, that would’ve also been the moment when she’d say, “Look, honey, I know you resonate with the character of Pocahontas, but we already live on stolen land and you are not an indigenous person, so it would be very insensitive for you to wear someone else’s culture as a costume.” “Certainly, Mother,” I’d respond. “You’re absolutely correct. My teacher taught us about the land theft and subsequent genocide of Native American nations in kindergarten last week as part of our People’s Herstory class, so I shouldn’t go as Pocahontas. But could I go as another Disney princess instead?

… beauty alters the grain of reality … pursuit of pure beauty is a trap, a fast track to bitterness and sorrow, that beauty has to be wedded to something more meaningful … everything I love is illusion, and yet … all that’s worth living for lies in that charm… a great sorrow and one that I am only beginning to understand: we don’t get to chose our own hearts. We can’t make ourselves want what’s good for us or what’s good for other people. We don’t get to choose the people we are… how do we know what’s right for us? Every shrink, every career counselor, every Disney princess knows the answer. Be yourself. Follow your heart.

...when in doubt, what to do? How do we know what's right for us? Every shrink, every career counselor, every Disney princess knows the answer: "Be yourself." "Follow your heart." Only here's what I really, really want someone to explain to me. What if one happens to be possessed of a heart that can't be trusted--? What if the heart, for its own unfathomable reasons, leads one willfully and in a cloud of unspeakable radiance away from health, domesticity, civic responsibility and strong social connections and all the blandly-held common virtues and instead straight toward a beautiful flare of ruin, self-immolation, disaster?

And you're ready to fight dressed like that?" Belet stopped. "Dressed like what?" "You're wearing unicorn footie pajamas, Belet." "So?" "You have a tail and a horn. They're pink." I tried to be diplomatic about this. "It's just not a look I associate with you. I was expecting something more Xena, Warrior Princess than...Disney Princess." She flicked the horn on her hood. "But unicorns are the deadliest, fiercest, and most bloodthirsty of all creatures, both mundane and supernatural. Their kill rate is six times higher than a dragon's....... One stab with a unicorn's horn and it's over. Doesn't matter how big and scaly you are.

A great sorrow, and one that I am only beginning to understand: we don't get to choose our own hearts. We can't make ourselves want what's good for us or what's good for other people. We don't get to choose the people we are. Because-- isn't it drilled into us constantly, from childhood on, an unquestioned platitude in the culture--? From William Blake to Lady Gaga, from Rousseau to Rumi to Tosca to Mister Rogers, it's a curiously uniform message, accepted from high to low: when in doubt, what to do? How do we know what's right for us? Every shrink, every career counselor, every Disney princess knows the answer: "Be yourself." "Follow your heart.

The truth of my heart is in these pages, in these words that are just words. This is the greatest love story ever written. This book is the gift of me loving myself, by being true to myself. I write romance novels. This romance does not need a prince to fall madly in love with the princess. This romance needs the princess to fall madly in love with her prince.

You’re dreaming. That world is about as real as a Disney fairy tale. You might have lived like a princess, but most people don’t. Normal people suffer. They hurt, they die, and they lose their loved ones. And they hurt each other. They tear at each other like the savage predators they are. There is no light without darkness, Nora; the night ultimately catches up with us all.

Ben had the most expressive face I’d ever seen. When he told a story, he dove into it, re-enacting each character with a new set of his jaw and cast of his brow. His eyes shone vibrantly, and every time he laughed, it showed in his whole body. Just watching him made me smile. I felt warm around him, and happy, and comfortable. I felt like flannel pajamas, hot cocoa, a teddy bear, and my favorite comedy on DVD. I felt like home. I loved Ben, that’s what I felt. It popped into my head, and I didn’t doubt it for a second. I loved Ben. Well that was settled then, wasn’t it? Then my eyes darted to Sage, and I noticed he wasn’t focused on Ben’s story either. He was watching me. He was watching me watch Ben, to be precise, leaning back on his elbows and staring so fixedly that I could practically hear him scratching his way into my brain to listen to what I was thinking. And the minute I felt that, I was desperate to take back what I’d thought, and make sure he hadn’t understood. Especially since I had this strong feeling that if he believed I loved Ben, he’d disappear. Maybe not right away, but as soon as he could. And that would be the end of the world. “Okay, Sage, your turn,” Rayna said. “What’s the most embarrassing thing you’ve ever done in the middle of a social function?” Instantly Sage’s intense stare was gone, replaced by a relaxed pose and a charming smile. “Um, I would say doing a spit take in front of Clea’s mom, several senators, and the Israeli foreign minister would probably cover it.” “You did that?” I asked. “Oh yes, he did,” Rayna nodded. “And the minister still offered you his house in Tel Aviv for the honeymoon? That’s shocking.” “Rayna is particularly charming,” Sage noted. “Thank you, darling.” She batted her eyes at him like a Disney princess. “What happened?” Ben asked. “Piri spiked your drink with garlic?” “You say that like it’s a joke,” Sage said. “I’m pretty sure she did.” “She must really have it out for you,” Ben said. “Palinka’s Hungarian holy water. You don’t mess with that.” “Speaking of holy water, I so did not get that on our trip,” Rayna put in. “Clea and I were touring one of the cathedrals in Italy, and in front of the whole tour I go, “That’s too cute! Look, they have birdbaths in the church!

DAISY:I had sex with Liam. LAYLA:Is that your idea of a joke? It's too early in the morning. DAISY:We broke my bed and my desk and my collection of Disney princess teacups. LAYLA:OMG. I can't even... Are you CRAZY? DAISY:Maybe. LAYLA:He's supposed to be your FAKE fiancé. DAISY:It was just a onetime thing. I'm about to send him home. He's sleeping on my collection of stuffed pigs because there are splinters in my sheets. LAYLA:What are you going to do when your dad comes home? DAISY:Tell him I had a nightmare. LAYLA:I hope it's a nightmare and Sam is going to wake me up and I'll be in my bed not texting you in the middle of the night. DAISY:It was soooooo goooood. LAYLA:Stop. You're hurting my eyes. DAISY:He's waking up. LAYLA:We need to talk about this. Send him home now. Don't do anything stupid. DAISY:GTG. He wants MORE!

Because—isn’t it drilled into us constantly, from childhood on, an unquestioned platitude in the culture—? From William Blake to Lady Gaga, from Rousseau to Rumi to Tosca to Mister Rogers, it’s a curiously uniform message, accepted from high to low: when in doubt, what to do? How do we know what’s right for us? Every shrink, every career counselor, every Disney princess knows the answer: “Be yourself.” “Follow your heart.” Only here’s what I really, really want someone to explain to me. What if one happens to be possessed of a heart that can’t be trusted—? What if the heart, for its own unfathomable reasons, leads one willfully and in a cloud of unspeakable radiance away from health, domesticity, civic responsibility and strong social connections and all the blandly-held common virtues and instead straight towards a beautiful flare of ruin, self-immolation, disaster?

She’s just getting a tat,” she says, turning me around. “What kind of tat?” “A tiny little butterfly or something equally as cute. Maybe a Disney princess. She hadn’t decided yet.” She rolls her eyes. Friday has skulls and crossbones and turtles and all sorts of weird shit all over her body. “I want to help her pick something,” I say, trying to push past Friday. “Stop,” she says. “She wants to surprise you.” I run a frustrated hand through my hair. “Tats mean different things to different people,” Friday says. “This means a lot to her, and she should be the one to decide what she gets.” I already know this, but I want to be involved, dammit. “You don’t trust Paul to take care of her?” Friday asks, her eyebrows crashing together. Of course I trust him. “But this is my girl,” I say. I know I sound like a baby. But there it is. She pats me on the arm. “Suck it up, buttercup,” she says.

Papa! You painted my nose!" "I certainly did," her father said. "But why?" Belle tried to see the purple dot on her face. Maurice grinned. "Because that mark makes you even more beautiful. Different and special from the inside out, just like your fantastic doll. And just like your mother, who you look and act more like every day." Belle eyed her father suspiciously. "A purple mark does all that?" "Yes. Because it's yours and only yours," Maurice said.

So, where are we going?" Eriku then turns onto the highway, one hand on the wheel, the other shifting gears. "I actually put a lot of thought into it. It was hard to decide on a place where we'd have maximum exposure but also enjoy ourselves. Somewhere the public can take us in, yet there's a lot of crowd control." We pass a billboard with a castle and a princess dressed in an ice-blue gown. I shift in my seat. No. Way. "Are we going to Tokyo Disney?" He smiles. "Life is a song, princess. Let's go make some fake-dating music.

When in doubt, what to do? How do we know what's right for us? Every shrink, every career counselor, every Disney princess knows the answer: "Be yourself." "Follow your heart." Only here's what I really, really want someone to explain to me. What if one happens to be possessed of a heart that can't be trusted—? What if the heart, for its own unfathomable reasons, leads one willfully and in a cloud of unspeakable radiance away from health, domesticity, civic responsibility and strong social connections and all the blandly-held common virtues and instead straight toward a beautiful flare of ruin, self-immolation, disaster?... If your deepest self is singing and coaxing you straight toward the bonfire, is it better to turn away? Stop your ears with wax? Ignore all the perverse glory your heart is screaming at you? Set yourself on the course that will lead you dutifully towards the norm, reasonable hours and regular medical check-ups, stable relationships and steady career advancement the New York Times and brunch on Sunday, all with the promise of being somehow a better person? Or... is it better to throw yourself head first and laughing into the holy rage calling your name?

When in doubt, what to do? How do we know what's right for us? Every shrink, every career counselor, every Disney princess knows the answer: "Be yourself." "Follow your heart." Only here's what I really, really want someone to explain to me. What if one happens to be possessed of a heart that can't be trusted—? What if the heart, for its own unfathomable reasons, leads one willfully and in a cloud of unspeakable radiance away from health, domesticity, civic responsibility and strong social connections and all the blandly-held common virtues and instead straight toward a beautiful flare of ruin, self-immolation, disaster?... If your deepest self is singing and coaxing you straight toward the bonfire, is it better to turn away? Stop your ears with wax? Ignore all the perverse glory your heart is screaming at you? Set yourself on the course that will lead you dutifully towards the norm, reasonable hours and regular medical check-ups, stable relationships and steady career advancement, the New York Times and brunch on Sunday, all with the promise of being somehow a better person? Or... is it better to throw yourself head first and laughing into the holy rage calling your name?

It’s funny, really, all the ways we tell ourselves every day that things are going to be okay. That things are going to get better, or that things can’t possibly get any worse. We all have these elaborate mechanisms to take care of our disappointments, our sadness, our pain. We build these walls around ourselves, placing bricks between us and everyone else, telling ourselves that we’re just protecting ourselves, just staying safe. Sometimes the bricks are easy to see, hard things that you bump up against when you try to touch someone. Sometimes they’re subtle. A slight turn of the head, a fast good-bye, a faraway look in the eyes. Sometimes I wonder why Disney never took to Rapunzel, why they never tried to take that story and put it on lunch boxes and in video stores and on pink sweatshirts. Maybe it’s that some fairy tales don’t need to be computer animated. Maybe Randy New-man doesn’t need to sing their songs. Maybe some fairy tales don’t even really need to be told, because they live inside of us, scaring us with their witches and their evil spells, making us wonder if maybe this time the prince won’t come in time, the princess won’t wake up, and maybe for once there won’t be any happily ever after. Maybe some fairy tales are just too scary to even think about.

Now, let me preface this story with the following: If you think that I am in any way endorsing cultural appropriation by writing this, you should just stop reading. I swear to Goddess,* if I hear about any one of you reading this passage and deciding, “Okay, yeah, great, the moral of this story is that Jacob thinks it’s awesome for white people to dress up as Native Americans for Halloween, so I’m gonna go do that,” I will use the power of the internet to find out where you live and throw so many eggs at your house that it becomes a giant omelet. Or if you’re vegan, I will throw so much tofu at your house that it becomes a giant tofu scramble. The point of this passage is not that white people should dress their children as Native Americans for Halloween. That’s basically the opposite of the point here. Capisce? All that being said, it was 1997. I was six years old and hadn’t quite developed my political consciousness about cultural appropriation or the colonization of the Americas and subsequent genocide of Native American people at the hands of white settlers yet. I also didn’t know multiplication, so I had some stuff to work on. What I did know was that Pocahontas was, by far, the most badass Disney princess. Keep in mind that Disney’s transgender-butch-lesbian masterpiece Mulan wasn’t released until a year later, or else I would’ve obviously gone with that (equally problematic) costume.

Never play the princess when you can be the queen: rule the kingdom, swing a scepter, wear a crown of gold. Don’t dance in glass slippers, crystal carving up your toes -- be a barefoot Amazon instead, for those shoes will surely shatter on your feet. Never wear only pink when you can strut in crimson red, sweat in heather grey, and shimmer in sky blue, claim the golden sun upon your hair. Colors are for everyone, boys and girls, men and women -- be a verdant garden, the landscape of Versailles, not a pale primrose blindly pushed aside. Chase green dragons and one-eyed zombies, fierce and fiery toothy monsters, not merely lazy butterflies, sweet and slow on summer days. For you can tame the most brutish beasts with your wily wits and charm, and lizard scales feel just as smooth as gossamer insect wings. Tramp muddy through the house in a purple tutu and cowboy boots. Have a tea party in your overalls. Build a fort of birch branches, a zoo of Legos, a rocketship of Queen Anne chairs and coverlets, first stop on the moon. Dream of dinosaurs and baby dolls, bold brontosaurus and bookish Belle, not Barbie on the runway or Disney damsels in distress -- you are much too strong to play the simpering waif. Don a baseball cap, dance with Daddy, paint your toenails, climb a cottonwood. Learn to speak with both your mind and heart. For the ground beneath will hold you, dear -- know that you are free. And never grow a wishbone, daughter, where your backbone ought to be.

My stutter started soon after, and the doctors said it was from the head injury. My mom said that when I stuttered it looked like my brain and I were trying to say ten things at once. My voice just wouldn’t work. “You can’t focus on the one idea you need to talk about,” she told me. “Just say the one thing, Jess.” She is the youngest of three—the Drew girls of McGregor, Texas—and her middle sister Connie was a speech therapist. Aunt Connie advised her to get me to calm down. “Take a breath,” my mother would say, getting down to my level to look me in the eye. That only worked so well. If you want someone to calm down, try telling them “calm down” and see where it gets you. But Connie had another idea, something that worked with other people who stuttered. Singing. “What you’re trying to say,” Mom said to me one day, “sing it to me.” I turned the phrase over in my mind, smoothing the edges of its consonants and vowels until the words became the breaths of a song. A lyric I could control. “I want Cheeeeeeri-ohhhhs,” I sang. I can’t describe that release. The rush of simply being understood. “Yes, you can have Cheerios,” my mother yelled. “You can have whatever you want! You sound so beautiful.” For the next two years, singing was the only time I didn’t stutter. I sang for everything I wanted, like some Disney princess making a wish. Around four, the stutter became more pronounced and my parents took me to a therapist. He used art therapy and asked me to draw myself in the family. I drew my parents standing in front of our house, then put myself inside looking out from a window. He told my parents I had a fear of abandonment. Looking back, I know my parents never left me alone, and maybe I was even around them too much. But somehow, I still had a fear that they would leave me.

The princess found herself being gently prodded and pushed and combed and magicked, and her hair felt weird. When she was spun around to face the mirror again, she was in a yellow dress, waves of sunshine spilling down from her bodice to her toes. Her shoulders were bare, which was a little strange, but they were pale and perfect and delicate. 'Swanlike,' she could hear the minstrel saying. Her hair was loosely braided over one shoulder, a yellow ribbon tying it off. The fairies gasped. "You are 'sooooo' beautiful!" Even 'more' beautiful!" "Can it be possible?" "Look at 'this'," a fairy commanded. With a serious look and a wave of her wand, she transformed the princess again. This time her hair was piled high on her head in an elegant chignon, a simple ribbon holding it back. A light blue dress puffed out around her softly, like a cloud. The finest gloves she had ever worn covered her bare arms up to her shoulders. Funny little tinkling shoes felt chilly on her feet. She put her hands on the skirt and twisted this way and that; what a dress to dance in! She would look like a fairy herself. Or a bride.

was no one else there to comfort her. There was only him. The real him. She stepped forward and laid her head against his chest. Samantha: I’ll never forget the moment when Perry and Celeste walked into the trivia night. There was like this ripple across the room. Everyone just stopped and stared. 23. Isn’t this FANTASTIC!” cried Madeline to Chloe as they took their really very excellent seats in front of the giant ice rink. “You can feel the cold from the ice! Brrr! Oh! Can you hear the music? I wonder where the princesses—” Chloe had reached over and placed one hand gently over her mother’s mouth. “Shhh.” Madeline knew she was talking too much because she was feeling anxious and ever so slightly guilty. Today needed to be stupendous to make it worth the rift she’d created between herself and Renata. Eight kindergarten children, who would otherwise be attending Amabella’s party, were here watching Disney On Ice because of Madeline. Madeline looked past Chloe at Ziggy, who was nursing a giant stuffed toy on his lap. Ziggy was the reason they were here today, she reminded herself. Poor Ziggy wouldn’t have been at the party. Dear little fatherless Ziggy. Who was possibly a secret psychopathic bully . . . but still! “Are you taking care of Harry the Hippo this weekend, Ziggy?” she said brightly. Harry the Hippo was the class toy. Every weekend it went home with a different child, along with a scrapbook that had to be returned with a little story about the weekend, accompanied by photos. Ziggy nodded mutely. A child of few words. Jane leaned forward, discreetly chewing gum as always. “It’s quite stressful having Harry to stay. We have to give Harry a good time. Last weekend he went on a roller coaster— Ow!” Jane recoiled as one of the twins, who was sitting next to her and fighting his brother, elbowed her in the back of the head. “Josh!” said Celeste sharply. “Max! Just stop it!” Madeline wondered if Celeste was OK today. She looked pale and tired, with purplish shadows under her eyes, although on Celeste they looked like an artful makeup effect that everyone should try. The lights in the auditorium began to dim, and then went to black. Chloe clutched Madeline’s arm. The music began to pound, so loud that Madeline could feel the vibrations. The ice rink filled with an

I’m going to say this once here, and then—because it is obvious—I will not repeat it in the course of this book: not all boys engage in such behavior, not by a long shot, and many young men are girls’ staunchest allies. However, every girl I spoke with, every single girl—regardless of her class, ethnicity, or sexual orientation; regardless of what she wore, regardless of her appearance—had been harassed in middle school, high school, college, or, often, all three. Who, then, is truly at risk of being “distracted” at school? At best, blaming girls’ clothing for the thoughts and actions of boys is counterproductive. At worst, it’s a short step from there to “she was asking for it.” Yet, I also can’t help but feel that girls such as Camila, who favors what she called “more so-called provocative” clothing, are missing something. Taking up the right to bare arms (and legs and cleavage and midriffs) as a feminist rallying cry strikes me as suspiciously Orwellian. I recall the simple litmus test for sexism proposed by British feminist Caitlin Moran, one that Camila unconsciously referenced: Are the guys doing it, too? “If they aren’t,” Moran wrote, “chances are you’re dealing with what we strident feminists refer to as ‘some total fucking bullshit.’” So while only girls get catcalled, it’s also true that only girls’ fashions urge body consciousness at the very youngest ages. Target offers bikinis for infants. The Gap hawks “skinny jeans” for toddlers. Preschoolers worship Disney princesses, characters whose eyes are larger than their waists. No one is trying to convince eleven-year-old boys to wear itty-bitty booty shorts or bare their bellies in the middle of winter. As concerned as I am about the policing of girls’ sexuality through clothing, I also worry about the incessant drumbeat of self-objectification: the pressure on young women to reduce their worth to their bodies and to see those bodies as a collection of parts that exist for others’ pleasure; to continuously monitor their appearance; to perform rather than to feel sensuality. I recall a conversation I had with Deborah Tolman, a professor at Hunter College and perhaps the foremost expert on teenage girls’ sexual desire. In her work, she said, girls had begun responding “to questions about how their bodies feel—questions about sexuality or arousal—by describing how they think they look. I have to remind them that looking good is not a feeling.

Tina was hosting. She's a thirty-five-year-old version of Sienne, only bottle blonde.Same blind-you lipstick, same taste in clothes,same complete disregard for anyone else's opinion on anything. They hate each other. "You hate me!" Sienna wailed. It wasn't Tina's voice that snapped back, but Dad's, "Oh,no. I am not playing that game with you. Do you have any idea what a hundred pounds of filet is gonna cost me? And now you want lobster?" "But it's my wedding! Daddy-" "Don't you Daddy me, princess! I'm already five grand in the hole for the damned hotel,not to mention two for the dress, and every time I turn around, you and your mother have added a new guest, bridesmaid,or crustacean!" First of all,Dad was yelling.Almost. Second,he was swearing.Even damn is fighting talk for him.I set down my pizza and debated the best route for a sealthy escape. I'd seen the dress.Pretty, in a Disney-princess, twenty-yards-of-tulle, boobs-shaped-into-missiles sort of way. Sienne looked deliriously happy in it. She looked beautiful.The less said about the bridesmaids' dressed, I'd decided, on seeing the purple sateen,the better. "No lobster!" he yelled. There was a dramatic howl, followed by the bang of the back door. When I peeked out,it was like a photo. Everything was frozen.Dad was standing over the massive pasta pot, red-faced and scowling, wooden spoon brandished like a sword. Leo and Ricky had retreated to the doorway of the freezer. Nonna had her eyes turned heavenward, and Tina was halfway through the dining room door, smirking a little.

American Girl dolls are nice. But they aren’t amazing. In recent years Toys“ R” Us, Walmart, and even Disney have all tried to challenge American Girl’s success with similar dolls (Journey Girls, My Life, and Princess & Me)—at a fraction of the price—but to date, no one has made a dent. American Girl is able to command a premium price because it’s not really selling dolls. It’s selling an experience. When you see a company that has a product or service that no one has successfully copied, like American Girl, rarely is it the product itself that is the source of the long-term competitive advantage, something American Girl founder Pleasant Rowland understood. “You’re not trying to just get the product out there, you hope you are creating an experience that will do the job perfectly,” says Rowland. You’re creating experiences that, in effect, make up the product’s résumé: “Here’s why you should hire me.” That’s why American Girl has been so successful for so long, in spite of numerous attempts by competitors to elbow in. My wife, Christine, and I were willing to splurge on the dolls because we understood what they stood for. American Girl dolls are about connection and empowering self-belief—and the chance to savor childhood just a bit longer. I have found that creating the right set of experiences around a clearly defined job—and then organizing the company around delivering those experiences (which we’ll discuss in the next chapter)—almost inoculates you against disruption. Disruptive competitors almost never come with a better sense of the job. They don’t see beyond the product.

Z ipes’s concerns overlap with those of feminists such as Marcia Lieberman, Karen Rowe, Sandra Gilbert, Susan Gubar, and, to a lesser extent, Ruth B. Bottigheimer, who diagnose fairy tales as symptoms of their cultures’ misogynistic traditions.11 For feminists, the fairy tales favored by a given society reflect its gender biases. Accordingly, Amer- icans’ Disney-abetted passion for “Cinderella,” “Sleeping Beauty,” “Snow White,” and “Beauty and the Beast” testifies to our culture’s expediently sexist projection of women as passively compliant, self- sacrificing, beauty-obsessed creatures devoid of agency.12 The inclu- sion of Russian fairy tales in Western feminists’ sphere of reference would necessitate a modification of their critique, for, Russian society’s notorious ageless sexism notwithstanding, some of Russia’s favorite tales (“The Feather of Finist the Bright Falcon,” “The Maiden Tsar,” and “The Frog Princess”) reverse the gender roles in the hackneyed paradigm that feminists deem generically quintessential.

Each Disney princess should have made it her mission in life to teach birds to be quiet in the morning.

You know, not every woman dreams of a designer wedding dress, Or even of getting married at all. It’s because of fairy tales, and Disney, that girls are wired from a young age to want to become a princess wearing a tiara and puffy, pink dress.

Faeries like to tangle children’s hair when they’re sleeping.