“At playtime she twirled and spun across the playground so fast that none of the little boys in her class could catch her and they were all very cross.”

“It wasn't till they were on the bridge that Delly asked RB, "So, Ferris Boyd's your favorite?" She didn't mind, mostly.RB answered so fast, though, she knew he wasn't fibbing. "She's my favorite friend," he told her. "You're my favorite everything.”

“Then I looked right at Mama, for the first time in what seemed like forever, and she wasn't looking at me, but into me. She was pulling me to her with her eyes, like she used to do. All of a sudden I could see the light that was Mama's shining out of her eyes. I couldn't help smiling at it.'Be careful,' my heart warned me.But I was having a hard time remembering that there as anything to be careful about. Because if I just looked at Mama's eyes...I could tell that the part of her I thought had gone away forever was still there and glowing, only from deep down inside her.”

“Her father was an intimidating man who held fast to his belief in his African heritage; that black should not marry white to avoid racial confusion. She was in love with a white man whose mother wished to keep her family's heritage intact by not crossbreeding with another race.”

“In her dance, she controlled the bright paper birds with invisible wires and threads. She played the human: heavy, tied to earth. Her dances weren't pretty or delightful, but they were magical, [...] They called her a dancer and a puppeteer and an artist. They might have called her a witch, and not the good kind either.”

“She wasn't a cruel Bird. But her heart ached so badly for these sad, broken birds that, just as the Puppeteer had planned, she had begun to hate them. She hated them for making her feel so wretched, when she should be happiest. That happens sometimes.”

“In the forest, in the forest, silence had cast a spell over all things. She plucked a great bouquet of daffodils and snowdrops, and tenderly held them to her, and tenderly kissed their fresh spring faces. She did not sing at all, but sat silent, expectant, and wondering, till her flowers faded and withered in her hands.”