“On breezy days when the wind was not too light and not too strong, Will and Pamela and the children flew their homemade kites in Peaceful Park until they were specks in the blue sky. When the wind was just right, the kites felt so strong and safe up there that Honor imagined nothing could budge them.'Ho bum," boasted Will, 'I could stand here all day and this kite would hold. It's like fishing.''Fishing in reverse,' said Pamela. 'Sky fishing.''What do you fish for in the air?' asked Honor.Pamela and Will started laughing. 'Oh, planets,' said Will. 'The occasional comet. An asteroid or two.'Honor held one kite string, and Will held the other. Pamela held Quintilian. On those afternoons, four did not seem like the wrong number for a family. Four seemed just right.”

“Someone once told me that children are like kites. You struggle just to get them in the air; they crash; you add a longer tail. Then they get caught in a tree; you climb up and bring them down, and untangle the string; you run to get them aloft again. Finally, the kite is airborne, and it flies higher and higher, as you let out more string, until it's so high in the sky, it looks like a bird. And if the string snaps, and you've done your job right, the kite will continue to soar in the wind, all by itself.”

“A kite can't really fly free,that's just an expression. In order to soar high in the sky the string of a kite needs to be anchored. If the string breaks the kite drops back to the ground. The kite's freedom depends on it not being as free as he thinks it is.”

“Waiting for the fish to bite or waiting for wind to fly a kite. Or waiting around for Friday night or waiting perhaps for their Uncle Jake or a pot to boil or a better break or a string of pearls or a pair of pants or a wig with curls or another chance. Everyone is just waiting.”

“Her lips remind me of kite strings and I find myself thinking about panda bears. Panda bears do not fly kites, I tell myself. 'I thought you were dead,' she says.Maybe if you taped a kite to a panda paw and scared the panda so that it started running, the kite might start to lift off.”

“You need to grab your dream out of the sky like it's a kite and pinch the string through your fingers until you reach the spool.”