“What use would wings be to a man bound in iron fetters? They would only drive him to even greater despair.”

“He worked night and day. He made a coat that would transform him; he would be more than a man; a winged creature, beautiful as light. All the birds brought him feathers. Even the eagle. Even the swan.”

“It appeared that the swift wings of their desires would have shattered against the iron gates of the impossible.”

“Even with tortured minds and broken spirits, even bound to the Surface, they ached for God's presence. It would be like being drawn back into the womb. It would be rest. It was the only real redemption there was.”

“What kind of love would drive a man for miles through solid rock?”

“The thought of these vast stacks of books would drive him mad: the more he read, the less he seemed to know — the greater the number of the books he read, the greater the immense uncountable number of those which he could never read would seem to be…. The thought that other books were waiting for him tore at his heart forever.”