“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.”

“To begin with, you've got to understand that a seagull is an unlimited idea of freedom, an image of the Great Gull, and your whole body, from wingtip to wingtip, is nothing more than your thought itself.”

“He spoke of very simple things- that it is right for a gull to fly, that freedom is the very nature of his being, that whatever stands against that freedom must be set aside, be it ritual or superstition or limitation in any form. "Set aside," came a voice from the multitude, "even if it be the Law of the Flock?""The only true law is that which leads to freedom," Jonathan said. "There is no other.”

“Jonathan sighed. The price of being misunderstood, he thought. They call you devil or they call you god.”

“Fletcher Lynd Seagull was still quite young, but already he knew that no bird had ever been so harshly treated by any Flock, or with so much injustice.”

“Your whole body, from wingtip to wingtip," Jonathan would say, other times, "is nothing more than your thought itself, in a form you can see. Break the chains of your thought, and you break the chains of your body, too.”

“For most gulls it was not flying that matters, but eating. For this gull, though, it was not eating that mattered, but flight.”