“...and for a second I feel an overwhelming sense of joy, and I think she's done it, she's flying, and time seems to stop with her glittering in the air like a beautiful bird. But then time resumes, and the air doesn't hold her...”

“Everybody wants to fly. At some stage in their lives, everyone looks up in the sky and sees the seemingly effortlessness of a bird in the gulf of air overhead and thinks: I wish, just one time, that could be me.”

“By the end of the week she was thinking constantly about where her body stopped and the air began about the exact point in space and time that was the difference between Maria and other.”

“Time is something of an enemy" she opined, "for us mortals. And yet I love it" - she fluttered her fingers in the air - "I love this moment, and it's a child of time.”

“Fear is a bird that refuses to fly, and each time she neglects to use her wings, she consents to the slow death of her destiny.”

“You're not coming with us," I say, realizing."If things were different, I would," Indie says, and when she looks at me, it's hard to hold her honest, longing gaze. "But they aren't. And I still have flying to do." And then, fast, like a fish or a bird, she disappears from the entrance to the hold. No one can catch Indie when it's time for her to move.”