“'Happily ever after,' the big lie. Those three insidious words, repeated again and again, promising myself and a gazillion other little girls that some day, sure as the sunset, a man prettier than ourselves would sweep us away. To live our lives forever and a day. Blah blah, blah. Never once mentioning the years of quiet desperation that surely followed. Which is why I pray with all my soul that whoever invented the lethal mantra 'happily ever after' died penniless, face down in the gutter, with cats gnawing on his ears.”