“He was still immersed in the dim, wet wonder of the folded wings that might open if someone loved him; he still hoped, probably, in a butterfly's unthinking way, for spring and warmth. How the wings ache, folded so, waiting; that is, they ache until they atrophy.”

“...listening with absorbed attention more to her voice than to what she was saying, and thinking how like she was, flowering through her voice into beauty in the darkness, to some butterflies he had come across in the Swiss mountains the summer before. When they were folded up they were grey, mothlike creatures that one might easily overlook, but directly they opened their wings they became the loveliest things in the world, all rose-colour or heavenly blue. So had she been to him in the daylight that afternoon,—an ordinary woman, not in any way noticeable; but now listen to her, opening into beauty on the wings of her voice!”

“Love gives you wings. Icarus and the Challenger both had wings, and so did my first love letter, after I folded it up and flung it at my crush.
”

“Folded in my arms you're a butterfly in reverseyou're giving up your wings and inheriting my curseyou're letting go ofme you're letting go”

“I wonder why when I told him that my chest still ached even though I had finally told him how I felt, he said, "So you finally realize how I've felt these past three years?" and laughed.”

“His whole body was completely still, except the wings, which were still fluttering a little, like when someone dies. That's when he finally understood that of all the things the angel had told him, nothing was true. That he wasn't even an angel, just a liar with wings.”