“Hark to the sky of a seagull!He cries because he's not an eagle.Oh, what if you were you silly he-gull?What would you say to your she-gull?”

“Gulls, aeroplaning above the chimney pots, were calling that he must talk to Laura about his plans. He needed no telling, for once in tune to their outlandish cries.”

“Jonathan Seagull discovered that boredom and fear and anger are the reasons that a gull's life is so short, and with those gone from his thought, he lived a long fine life indeed.”

“When she cried, he would say, "there is nothing wrong with crying. Your feelings tell you who are. They tell what is important. Don't ever be ashamed of them.”

“He was drowned, he used to say, and lying on a cliff with gulls screaming over him. He would look over the edge of the sofa down into the sea. Or he was hearing music… But “Lovely!” he used to cry and the tears would run down his cheeks, which was to her the most dreadful thing of all, to see a man like Septimus, who had fought, who was brave, crying. And he would lie listening until suddenly he would cry that he was falling down, down into the flames!”

“If you were M. Pujol, Madeleine says, I would reach out my hand to you. Like this.If you were M. Pujol, Adrien says, I would press my mouth against your pulse. Like this. If you were he, she says, I would cup your chin in my fingers.If you were he, he says, I would take those fingers into my mouth.Then my mouth would envy my fingers, she says.Then your mouth must usurp your fingers, he says.And then, she says, I would do this.”