“Islam was like a mental cage. At first, when you open the door, the caged bird stays inside: it is frightened. It has internalized its imprisonment. It takes time for the bird to escape, even after someone has opened the doors to its cage.”

“What is this thing called the existence? Is it all the things that we perceive it to be? Or is it something else? It's a gift. One of my favorite examples is the bird in the cage. You may think that you own the bird inside the cage, but you're wrong. You only own the cage. People think that they need to have a very fancy cage, that the more incredible the cage, the more incredible the bird will look. But the cage and the bird are really two different things. When the bird is gone, all that will be left is the cage.”

“She is like the wind, open and free. If I cage the wind, would it die?
-Then don't cage it, Mikhail. Trust it to stay beside you.”

“Some birds are not meant to be caged, that's all. Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild. So you let them go, or when you open the cage to feed them they somehow fly out past you. And the part of you that knows it was wrong to imprison them in the first place rejoices, but still, the place where you live is that much more drab and empty for their departure.”

“The soul helps the body, and at certain moments raises it. It is the only bird that sustains its cage.”

“A cage went in search of a bird.”

“The caged bird sings with a fearful trill,
of things unknown, but longed for still,
and his tune is heard on the distant hill,
for the caged bird sings of freedom.”

“A person isn't a bird. You can't cage a person.”

“I am a cage, in search of a bird.”

“A forest bird never wants a cage.”