These bright roofs, these steep towers, these jewel-lakes, these skeins of railroad line – all spoke to her and she answered. She was glad they were there. She belonged to them and they to her. . . . She had not lost it. She was touching it with her fingertips. This was flying: to go swiftly over the earth you loved, touching it lightly with your fingertips, holding the railroads lines in your hand to guide you, like a skein of wool in a spider-web game – like following Ariadne's thread through the Minotaur's maze, Where would it lead, where?
- Anne Morrow Lindbergh, 'The Steep Ascent', 1944