“We shouldn’t put too much trust in happiness,” I said. “It comes and goes. And when we try and take hold of it, it slips away from us. It’s like a beautiful bird sitting on our balcony rail and flying off the moment we get too close. Do you expect a bird to sit on your shoulder and sing to the pair of us the way we’d like it to? /A Time for Errors (1992)”

“There are joys which long to be ours. God sends ten thousands truths, which come about us like birds seeking inlet; but we are shut up to them, and so they bring us nothing, but sit and sing awhile upon the roof, and then fly away.”

“There are few times when we know with absolute certainty we are going to do something for the last time. Life has a way of moving in circles, bringing us back to places we didn’t expectand taking us away from those we do. There are too many times we don’t pay close enough attention, and moments are lost in our assumption we’ll have another chance.”

“Happiness is like a bird. If it choosesto sit on your roof, you cannot capture it and put it in a cage.”

“We’re running out of time, he said.As if time were the kind of thing you could run out of, as if it were measured into bowls that were handed to us at birth and if we ate too much or too fast or right before jumping into the water then our time would be lost, wasted, already spent.But time is beyond our finite comprehension. It’s endless, it exists outside of us; we cannot run out of it or lose track of it or find a way to hold on to it. Time goes on even when we do not.”

“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.”