Summer and Bird Quotes

“But when you find your soul, you have to go. When you find your true shape, when the wind lifts you up, when you remember who you are, you have to go.”
― Katherine Catmull, Summer and Bird

“The bird music sank into her, like a song you used to know but forgot long ago. You hear a piano play it some day, and for a minute you feel a happy pain, but you don't know why. Bird felt like that.”
― Katherine Catmull, Summer and Bird

“She wasn't a cruel Bird. But her heart ached so badly for these sad, broken birds that, just as the Puppeteer had planned, she had begun to hate them. She hated them for making her feel so wretched, when she should be happiest. That happens sometimes.”
― Katherine Catmull, Summer and Bird

“And I love everything on this changing, burning earth, but I am most grateful to you.”
― Katherine Catmull, Summer and Bird

“She was only half Bird now, and the other half song. She liked it that way.”
― Katherine Catmull, Summer and Bird

“Well, I don't care," said Bird out loud, said Bird, who cared so much that she couldn't bear to touch the hurt. "I don't care. I ran away from Summer, and I will make my own castle. I will be my own queen.”
― Katherine Catmull, Summer and Bird

“In her dance, she controlled the bright paper birds with invisible wires and threads. She played the human: heavy, tied to earth. Her dances weren't pretty or delightful, but they were magical, [...] They called her a dancer and a puppeteer and an artist. They might have called her a witch, and not the good kind either.”
― Katherine Catmull, Summer and Bird

“A nursery rhyme shapes your bones and nerves, and it shapes your mind. They are powerful, nursery rhymes, and immensely old, and not toys, even though they are for children." "But they make no sense!" Summer protested "Ah, well," said Ben. "Sometimes sense hides behind walls. You must find a window and stick your head right in before you can see it.”
― Katherine Catmull, Summer and Bird

“We never really know what might be beside us or ahead, bust most days we walk as if we do.

(from uncorrected galley)”
― Katherine Catmull, Summer and Bird

“A map is a song. It's different when different people sing it. . .You will make this your own song, sing it your own way.”
― Katherine Catmull, Summer and Bird

“Sometimes there is a seed in your heart. It might feel like a stone, or like a bud ready to blossom. It might feel like a heavy little egg, and you have no idea what's inside. It might feel like a hard, burning ember. No seed is the same. But if you let that seed, that feeling-sound, take root, then it will grow. Sometimes it grows quickly, or sometimes very slowly, especially if you don't tend it. It could take months or even years to grow up through your throat and out your mouth. But when you do finally speak it, the birds call that a heart-song.”
― Katherine Catmull, Summer and Bird

“How did you know," Summer would demand, and then decide: "It's probably a coincidence."
"It's not a coincidence," Bird would say. "It's just obvious. Your body just knows."
"But how do you know?"
"How do you know a story is a good story or not?" asked Bird. "Like that. you know like that.”
― Katherine Catmull, Summer and Bird

“Have I heard all the stories I need to hear?" she asked, stupidly. But he answered as if it were a good question.
"No, you haven't. But you don't have time to hear any more from me. So listen for stories wherever you go. It won't always be someone telling them; sometimes they come in other ways. And Summer, when you tell yourself stories, make them true. And make them surprising. That's how you will know they might be true.”
― Katherine Catmull, Summer and Bird

“The pinpoint flame of anger and grief becomes a hot needle, then a hot knife.
It melts the frost that binds her lips.
It melts the sea in her eyesss.
(from uncorrected galley)”
― Katherine Catmull, Summer and Bird

“We never really know what might me beside us or ahead, but most days we walk as if we do”
― Katherine Catmull, Summer and Bird