“Through her, in microcosm, the wide earth sobbed. The starglobe sank in her; the colours faded. The death-dew rose and the wild birds in her breast climbed to her throat and gathered songless, hovering, all tumult, wing to wing, so ardent for those climes where all things end.”

“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.”

“...listening with absorbed attention more to her voice than to what she was saying, and thinking how like she was, flowering through her voice into beauty in the darkness, to some butterflies he had come across in the Swiss mountains the summer before. When they were folded up they were grey, mothlike creatures that one might easily overlook, but directly they opened their wings they became the loveliest things in the world, all rose-colour or heavenly blue. So had she been to him in the daylight that afternoon,—an ordinary woman, not in any way noticeable; but now listen to her, opening into beauty on the wings of her voice!”

“Her body was wrapped in shadows like moth wings, like rose-petals.”

“Be a bird perched on a frail branch that she feels bending beneath her, still she sings away all the same, knowing she has wings.”

“When sad she brings the thunderAnd her tears, they bring the rainWhen ill she feeds a poisonTo us all to fell her painHer smiles they bring the sunshineAnd the laughter and the windAnd the birds they go on singingAnd the world is whole again. "Smile, sweet Sunday," Wednesday whispered in her ear. "The birds need your love so they can lift their wings.”