It is scary, sometimes, Tomas admitted. But the scary bits are what make you brave.

No bird in a cage ever speaks. What is there to say? The sky is everywhere, churning above its head, blue and endless, calling out to it. But the caged bird can't answer anything except 'I cannot'.

I am dying: it's a beautiful word. Like the long slow sigh of the cello: dying. But the sound of it is the only beautiful thing about it.

Nothing was easy, and sometimes she failed, and sometimes she thought that the fairy stories were right, that there must indeed be easier ways of living happily ever after; but defeat is a poor ending to any tale, so she kept trying.

A small town is nothing but eyes and gaping maw; it pecks at its own like a flock of vicious birds.

A small town has as many eyes as a fly

There's fire in my fingers. I burn everything I touch.