It doesn't matter if you're born in a duck yard, so long as you are hatched from a swan's egg! - Hans Christian Andersen

I know what you want. It is very stupid of you, but you shall have your way, and it will bring you to sorrow, my pretty princess. - The sea witch.

"I think I will sit on it a little while longer," said the duck, "as I have sat so long already, a few days will be nothing." "Please yourself," said the old duck, and she went away.

I can give her no greater power than she has already, said the woman; don't you see how strong that is? How men and animals are obliged to serve her, and how well she has got through the world, barefooted as she is. She cannot receive any power from me greater than she now has, which consists in her own purity and innocence of heart. If she cannot herself obtain access to the Snow Queen, and remove the glass fragments from little Kay, we can do nothing to help her.