- Adult Clara (narrator): The Christmas parties of long ago all blur and mix in memory. The real and the unreal become as one.
- Adult Clara (narrator): [opening lines] Christmas long ago was the memory of a dream that seemed never to end. But somewhere in the middle of that dream, I always did wake up, just in time to attend the Christmas party.
- Adult Clara (narrator): Dreams are strangely familiar places. They are not all make-believe, but only the homely inside of yourself, like the inner lining of your favorite coat, or like the sweet kernel of the hardest nut that only the jaws of my Nutcracker Prince could reveal to me.
- Adult Clara (narrator): In the language of this dream, in that palace of delight, we spoke with our whole selves... And my tall Nutcracker Cavalier had eyes only for me, for at least as long as that dream could be.