Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.'The Skin Horse
'It doesn't happen all at once,' said the Skin Horse. 'You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept.'The Skin Horse
'Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.'The Skin Horse
'When you are Real you don't mind being hurt.'The Skin Horse
'I am the nursery magic Fairy,' she said. 'I take care of all the playthings that the children have loved. When they are old and worn out and the children don't need them any more, then I come and take them away with me and turn them into Real.'The Nursery Magic Fairy
'He didn't mind how he looked to other people, because the nursery magic had made him Real, and when you are Real shabbiness doesn't matter.'Narrator
'And so time went on, and the little Rabbit was very happy--so happy that he never noticed how his beautiful velveteen fur was getting shabbier and shabbier.'Narrator
'He longed to become Real, to know what it felt like; and yet the idea of growing shabby and losing his eyes and whiskers was rather sad.'Narrator
'It was a long weary time, for the Boy was too ill to play, and the little Rabbit found it rather dull with nothing to do all day long.'Narrator
'But very soon he grew to like it, for the Boy used to talk to him, and made nice tunnels for him under the bedclothes that he said were like the burrows the real rabbits lived in.'Narrator