“Mice? Fine. Flying mice? Not so fine.”

“Mary bring out your umbrella - The sun shines down on this fine, fine dayBut the ashes raining down foreverAre going to turn your hair to gray.Mary keep your oars a-steadySail away on the rising floodKeep your candle at the readyRed tides can't be told from blood.- "Miss Mary" (a common child's clapping game, dating from the time of the blitz), from Pattycake and Beyond: A History of Play”

“The sparrows jumped before they knew how to fly, and they learned to fly only because they had jumped”

“Perhaps this was how the sparrows did it too; perhaps they were looking so hard at the peaks and tips of the new rooftops coated with dew, and the vast new horizon, that they only forgot that they did not know how to fly until they were already in midair.”

“He who leaps for the sky may fall, it's true. But he may also fly.”

“There is a nocturna for every single person in the world! And each night the nocturni sip dreams from the River of Knowledge, and fly out into the world, and deliver them to their humans.”

“...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...”