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"For now he knew what Shalimar knew: If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it" pg.337

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"He had left her. While he dreamt of flying, Hagar was dying. Sweet’s silvery voice came back to him: 'Who’d he leave behind?'" pg.332

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"O Solomon don't leave me here" pg.301
(alluding to Milkman's flight away from Hagar)

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"'Ha! Sound like a newspaper headline: Pilot Dead. She do any flying?'" (pg.283)

(ironic because Pilate doesn't have much weighing her down and she didn't leave behind destruction)

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"Dark, ruined, evil. Never, not since he knelt by his
window sill wishing he could fly, had he felt so lonely" pg.238

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“'Too much tail. All that jewelry weighs it down. Like vanity. Can’t nobody fly with all that shit. Wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.'” pg.179

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"The bits of Sunday dresses that he saw did not fly; they hung in the air quietly, like the whole notes in the last measure of an Easter hymn" pg. 173

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"Clear as day, her father said, “Sing. Sing,” and later he leaned in at the window and said, 'You just can’t fly on off and leave a body.'" (pg.147)
(very strong support to thesis)

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"It was a warm dreamy sleep all about flying, about sailing high over the earth. But not with arms stretched out like airplane wings, nor shot forward like Superman in a horizontal dive, but floating, cruising, in the relaxed position of a man lying on a couch reading a newspaper. Part of his flight was over the dark sea, but it didn’t frighten him because he knew he could not fall. He was alone in the sky, but somebody was applauding him, watching him and applauding" (pg.298)

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"But riding backward made him uneasy. It was like flying blind, and not knowing where he was going-just where he had been-troubled him." pg.32

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"The airplane ride exhilarated him, encouraged illusion and a feeling of invulnerability. High above the clouds, heavy yet light, caught in the stillness of speed ("Cruise," the pilot said), sitting in intricate metal become glistening bird, it was not possible to believe he had ever made a mistake, or could) pg. 220

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"He flew. You know, like a bird. Just stood up in the fields one day, ran up some hill, spun around a couple of times, and was lifted up in the air. Went right on back to wherever it was he came from. There’s a big double-headed
rock over the valley named for him. It like to killed the woman, the wife. I guess you could say ‘wife.’ " pg. 323

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"that the large tidy Salt Lake of Utah is all they have of the sea and that they must content themselves with bank, shore, and beach because they cannot claim a coast. And having non, seldom dream of flight" pg. 162

(flight represents wealth and opportunity)

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"Sugarman done fly away
Sugarman done gone
Sugarman cut across the sky
Sugarman gone home.
Milkman could hardly breathe. Hagar's voice scooped up what little pieces of heart he had left to call his own" pg.49

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"At 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday the 18th of February, 1931, I will take off from Mercy and fly away on my own wings. Please forgive me. I loved you all. (signed Robert Smith, Ins.agent) pg.1