Excerpt from The Velveteen Rabbit, by Margery Williams:
"What's real?" asked the rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick out handle?"
"Real isn't how you're made", said the skin horse. "It is 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."
"Does it hurt?" asked the rabbit.
"Sometimes", said the skin horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are real you don't mind being hurt."
"Does it happen all at once like being wound up or bit by bit?"
"It doesn’t happen all at once, 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 have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are real, most of your hair has been loved off, 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."