“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.”

“THE TAME BIRD WAS IN A CAGETHE tame bird was in a cage, the free bird was in the forest.They met when the time came, it was a decree of fate.The free bird cries, "O my love, let us fly to the wood."The cage bird whispers, "Come hither, let us both live in the cage."Says the free bird, "Among bars, where is there room to spread one's wings?""Alas," cries the caged bird, "I should not know where to sit perched in the sky." The free bird cries, "My darling, sing the songs of the woodlands."The cage bird sings, "Sit by my side, I'll teach you the speech of the learned."The forest bird cries, "No, ah no! songs can never be taught."The cage bird says, "Alas for me, I know not the songs of the woodlands." There love is intense with longing, but they never can fly wing to wing.Through the bars of the cage they look, and vain is their wish to know each other.They flutter their wings in yearning, and sing, "Come closer, my love!"The free bird cries, "It cannot be, I fear the closed doors of the cage."The cage bird whispers, "Alas, my wings are powerless and dead.”

“How terrible it must be to be a member of the noble class. So many rules. Such restraint. You must feel like a caged bird, battering its wings against the sides of its golden prison.”

“Farewell," they cried, "Wherever you fare till your eyries receive you at the journey's end!" That is the polite thing to say among eagles."May the wind under your wings bear you where the sun sails and the moon walks," answered Gandalf, who knew the correct reply.”

“I have come to accept the feeling of not knowing where I am going. And I have trained myself to love it. Because it is only when we are suspended in mid-air with no landing in sight, that we force our wings to unravel and alas begin our flight. And as we fly, we still may not know where we are going to. But the miracle is in the unfolding of the wings. You may not know where you're going, but you know that so long as you spread your wings, the winds will carry you.”

“I haven't written in a week. It's like holding your breath under water. You feel an awful constriction and then the instinct to propel yourself.”