“...lying spread-eagled in the hall with only my ankle insidethe room that kept me prisoner here. They really should have thought of that and tagged my neck or something.”

“You too are an exile, I thought. You morn for the broad open steppes where you have room to spread your icy wings. Here you feel stifled and constricted, like an eagle that cries and beats against the bars of its iron cage.”

“...cursing my heels and debating whether it was faster to stop and take them off--damn ankle straps!--or keep running with the potential neck breakers. Wouldn’t that make a charming epitaph? Here lies Cat. Killed not by fang, but Ferragamos.”

“I welcomed the circling sharks but they avoided me as if knowing I preferred their teeth to the chains around my neck my waist my ankles”

“I lay the book on the floor, open to the middle. It's a lovely volume, green leather covers, engraved endpapers. I remove my shoes and step into it up to my ankles, knees, hips, chest, until only my head is showing and the pages spread around me and the words bob up and down and bump into my neck, and the punctuation sticks to my chin and cheeks so I look like I need a shave.”

“For ten years you have climbed here to my cave: you would have become weary of shining and of the journey, had it not been for me, my eagle, and my serpent.”