How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Well, there was no shortage of fanciful stories about winged things. Angels and dragons, sky kelpies and cloud sphinxes. They always turned out to be something else: a glare off the water, shadows in mist, a mirage projected by a tired sailor's bleary eyes. But that night, I had to admit, I kept a sharp lookout as I swept the horizons and hopscotched over my constellations. I saw nothing out of the ordinary, none of Benjamin Malloy's beautiful creatures. But I wish I had. I liked to think there was no end of things aloft in the sky, unseen by us. (1.193)
Matt likes to think there are things in the sky that aren't really there, namely the spirit of his dead father. More on that in a bit…
Quote #2
[…] I slept—and dreamed I was running along the beach. The skeleton was bounding after me, its bony wings flared, its legs stretching long as it soared weightlessly over the sand. Its jaws gaped. I was so slow, so weak. I could barely lift my feet from the sand to take a stride. Why couldn't I go faster? It would be upon me in a moment. What was wrong with me? I should have been able to fly free, but I could not leave the earth. (10.170)
Have you ever had a dream like that? Where you're running from something but it feels like you are in slo-mo? You do spend the whole time wondering why the heck you can't seem to move any faster. Matt wonders why he can't take off and fly, but when he wakes up he knows why. It's because the Aurora is land-locked, and he can't dream he's flying when he's on land.
Quote #3
"When my dad died, I was afraid I'd never ever be happy again. But I was. Once I started working on the Aurora. I loved it. It's the world I was born into. It's all my father's stories. I dream about him up there, and I never do on land. It feels like home aloft. But on the ground, it all catches up with me. So I've got to keep flying, do you see?" (12.34)
Matt can't dream about flying around with his father when he's on land, so he needs to be airborne in order to feel like he's still real. The dreams and the ship are the only things that are keeping his father alive, and so they're the only places where Matt feels truly happy.
Quote #4
I fell. I was a slick wet bundle of bone and hair, and I was in the sky, falling. I knew I should fly, knew I was meant to. But my wings would scarcely open. I tried to flap, but I was so weak I could barely push against the tower of air thrusting past me. Why couldn't I do this? Every bit of my body was born to do this, so why couldn't I? My wings would not move. But the ground flew up toward me. (13.33)
Although he doesn't say it, we're pretty sure this is Matt dreaming that he is the cloud cat, the one that Benjamin Malloy witnessed plummeting from the sky. Throughout the novel there is an unspoken connection between the two of them (check out the "Symbols" section for more on this). Matt's inability to fly is a major frustration for him, so it's no wonder he keeps having dreams about it.
Quote #5
They were never able to recover the body; the seas and skies were too rough. They told us that, from such a height, the impact on the water would have killed him instantly. But I liked to think of him sailing clear. I liked to think of him soaring around the world, crossing paths with me. (13.50)
This helps explain why Matt has constructed the idea that his father never died: there wasn't enough closure after his death. There wasn't a body to bury or any physical proof of his death, so Matt can afford to think there was some way he could've survived the fall.
Quote #6
I slept. The ship filled all through the night, and even in my dreams I could sense it. I could feel her shifting on the sand as she became lighter, and at some point she came free of the ground and was floating again. Air moved beneath her belly once more, and in my sleep I soared all around her. I waited for my father, but he did not come. (14.1)
Matt's dreams are pretty connected to whatever is going on with him when he's awake. (Just like the rest of us. Ever dream that you show up at school naked? It's anxiety about feeling like you're over-exposed in real life. Neat, huh?) So in this scenario, why doesn't Matt's father come? What is preventing his presence in Matt's dreams?
Quote #7
I could not fly. I had crashed. I was not lighter than air after all. I'd fallen, and a great shame seeped through me. I was heavy as stone. All my life I'd told myself I was light and could outrun sadness. I could fly away and keep flying forever. But I could never catch up with my father. […] He was gone, well and truly gone, and now everything had caught up with me: all the years of sailing away from my family, and my sadness. (20.56)
This is the problem with letting your dreams feel too much like reality. Matt has avoided facing his father's death for so long that when he's confronted with evidence that he can't really fly everything comes crashing down on him. Not only can he not fly, but his father is really and truly dead, and now he has to handle both losses.
Quote #8
She'd stood there before her Lumiére projector and showed her photos of the skeleton, explained them, and then described our encounters with the cloud cat in the middle of the Pacificus. When she answered questions from the audience, her voice never shook, and she rarely stumbled on her words or hesitated. Quite apart from that, she looked wonderful in a fitted striped suit with dark lapels, her hair chestnut and glowing. "Hello," I said. "You're famous now." (21.4)
This is one of Kate's dreams that have become reality. She's proven that her grandfather wasn't a raving lunatic, and she is now well on her way to becoming a respected member of the scientific community.
Quote #9
It had not been easy. When I'd first started at the Academy there'd been many bad, sleepless nights. I missed my bunk on the Aurora, and Baz and Captain Walken and all the crew. I missed being in motion. And I missed my father, more acutely than I ever had before. There'd been plenty of times I'd been so lonely and miserable I'd wanted to quit and return to the Aurora. But then, unexpectedly, one night I'd dreamed of my father, even though I was landlocked. I was flying alongside the Aurora, and he'd come and joined me, and when I woke up that morning, everything was different. As long as I could still dream about him, I knew everything would be all right. I didn't need to be aloft to find happiness. It could find me wherever I was: on the Aurora, or here in Paris, or back home with Mom and Isabel and Sylvia. (21.52)
This is a major turning point for Matt. To realize that he doesn't need all of his metaphorical security blankets in order to be happy is a huge step, and shows immense emotional growth. Do you think he could've had this epiphany if the adventure with the pirates had never happened?
Quote #10
I remembered him often still. We couldn't have escaped without Bruce to help us. What made it worse was that I'd felt resentful of him. And what made me saddest of all was that he died before he figured out what his dream was, what he most loved and wanted to do with his life. (21.83)
Matt puts a lot of stock in hopes and dreams, so it makes sense that this is what saddens him the most about Bruce's death. Part of the tragedy of early death is the loss of what they could have been.