“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.”

“Let us be like a bird for a moment perched On a frail branch when he sings;Though he feels it bend, yet he sings his song,Knowing that he has wings.”

“Be like the bird that, passing on her flight awhile on boughs too slight, feels them give way beneath her, and yet sings, knowing that she hath wings.”

“Keda,' she said to herself,' Keda, this is tragedy.' But as her words hung emptily in the morning air, she clenched her hands for she could feel no anguish and the bright bird that had filled her breast was still singing... was still singing.”

“She starts to roll down her sleeve, but Guy stops her. He holds her arm, looks at her cuts, traces the pattern of her razor marks with his hand."Don't, it's..."Willow stops speaking as he bends his head and kisses her scars.She knows she should tell him to stop, but she can't because she wants him to go on forever. She knows too that she will probably pay for this feeling with other less pleasurable ones, but still she can't bring herself to pull her arm away.”

“Everything, even herself, was now unbearable to her. She wished that, taking wing like a bird, she could fly somewhere, far away to regions of purity, and there grow young again.”