“How come it can’t fly no better than a chicken?’ Milkman asked.Too much tail. All that jewelry weighs it down. Like vanity. Can’t nobody fly with all that [stuff]. Wanna fly, you got to give up the [stuff] that weighs you down.’The peacock jumped onto the hood of the Buick and once more spread its tail, sending the flashy Buick into oblivion.”

“You wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.”

“I'd rather be the head of a fly than the tail of a lion.”

“I would rather be the head of a fly than the tail of a lion.”

“[The kakapo] is an extremely fat bird. A good-sized adult will weigh about six or seven pounds, and its wings are just about good for waggling a bit if it thinks it's about to trip over something — but flying is out of the question. Sadly, however, it seems that not only has the kakapo forgotten how to fly, but it has forgotten that it has forgotten how to fly. Apparently a seriously worried kakapo will sometimes run up a tree and jump out of it, whereupon it flies like a brick and lands in a graceless heap on the ground.”

“He would say that God had given him a tail to keep the flies off, but that he would sooner have had no tail and no flies.”