Willow trees dipped their bare branches into pond water like girls testing the temperature with their toes. - Elizabeth Berg The secret island had looked mysterious enough on the night they had seen it before - but now, swimming in the hot June haze, it seemed more enchanting than ever. As they drew near to it, and saw the willow trees that bent over the water-edge and heard the sharp call of moorhens that scuttled off, the children gazed in delight. Nothing but trees and birds and little wild animals. Oh, what a secret island, all for their very own, to live on and play on. - Enid Blyton No matter how far back you cut a willow tree, it will never really die. - Ann Brashares In a world where thrushes sing and willow trees are golden in the spring, boredom should have been included among the seven deadly sins. - Elizabeth Goudge It is a struggle; for though the black man fights passively, he nevertheless fights; and his passive resistance is more effective at present than active re...

For we are like tree trunks in the snow. In appearance they lie smoothly and a little push should be enough to set them rolling. No, it can't be done, for they are firmly wedded to the ground. But see, even that is only appearance. - Franz Kafka When people visit my farm they often envision their dog, finally off-leash in acres of safely fenced countryside, running like Lassie in a television show, leaping over fallen tree trunks, shiny-eyed with joy at the change to run free in the country. While they're imagining that heartwarming scene, their dog is most likely gobbling up sheep poop as fast as he can. Dog aren't people, and if they have their own image of heaven, it most likely involves poop. - Patricia B Mcconnell

I seek truth and beauty in the transparency of an autumn leaf, in the perfect form of a seashell on the beach, in the curve of a woman's back, in the texture of an ancient tree trunk, but also in the elusive forms of reality. - Isabel Allende Ty Walker opened the backdoor to his house and walked in to a big, seriously pissed off black man with tree trunk legs planted apart and beefy arms crossed on his chest. He knew he'd get that when he got home. He also didn't give a fuck. He closed the door and looked Julius in the eye. "She gone?" he asked. "You are one serious dumb fuck. - Kristen Ashley The realization that I'd have nothing to take home had finally sunk in. My knees buckled and I slid down the tree trunk to its roots. It was too much. I was too sick and weak and tired, oh, so tired. Let them call the Peacekeepers and take us to the community home, I thought. Or better yet, let me die right here in the rain. - Suzanne Collins For we are like tre...

If it should turn out that we have mishandled our own lives as several civilizations before us have done, it seems a pity that we should involve the violet and the tree frog in our departure. - Loren Eiseley I'm like a tree frog when it comes to birthdays. Basically, my thoughts on birthdays can be summed up in two words: tree and frog. - Jarod Kintz Far outside the city the tree frogs were calling her, and the deep, rhythmic pulse of their voices set the blood flow to her heart. - Ann Patchett

I wonder if anyone else has an ear so tuned and sharpened as I have, to detect the music, not of the spheres, but of earth, subtleties of major and minor chord that the wind strikes upon the tree branches. Have you ever heard the earth breathe? - Kate Chopin We see our sins reflected everywhere: in the pallor of our intimates' faces, in the scratching of tree branches against windows, in the strange movements of everyday objects. These may be messages from God or tricks of the eye, but in neither case are we permitted to ignore them. - Anna Godbersen My feet are like gnarled old tree branches. - Dennis Rodman I see the mycelium as the Earth's natural Internet, a consciousness with which we might be able to communicate. Through cross-species interfacing, we may one day exchange information with these sentient cellular networks. Because these externalized neurological nets sense any impression upon them, from footsteps to falling tree branches, they could relay enormous amoun...

You know," I said to Michael, "my girlfriend took him down with a broken tree branch." "Too bad she isn't here," he said. - Rachel Caine I didn't walk over and talk to him, though, not then. If I needed the time for a tree branch to become just a tree branch again and the wind to become just the wind, then a boy, most of all, needed some time to be only a boy. - Deb Caletti I wonder if anyone else has an ear so tuned and sharpened as I have, to detect the music, not of the spheres, but of earth, subtleties of major and minor chord that the wind strikes upon the tree branches. Have you ever heard the earth breathe? - Kate Chopin We see our sins reflected everywhere: in the pallor of our intimates' faces, in the scratching of tree branches against windows, in the strange movements of everyday objects. These may be messages from God or tricks of the eye, but in neither case are we permitted to ignore them. - Anna Godbersen So with my luck, I'l...

Now, children, I want you all to sit up just as straight and pretty as you can and give me all your attention for a minute or two. There - that is it. That is the way good little boys and girls should do. I see one little girl who is looking out of the window - I am afraid she thinks I am out there somewhere - perhaps up in one of the trees making a speech to the little birds. [Applausive titter.] - Mark Twain ...the quiet was so deep that their feet seemed to thump along while all the trees leaned over them and listened, - J R R Tolkien O Elbereth! Gilthoniel! We still remember, we who dwell In this far land beneath the trees. Thy starlight on the Western Seas. - J R R Tolkien I give you this toast: To the Hobbits. May they outlast the Sarumans and see spring again in the trees. - J R R Tolkien Haldir had gone on and was now climbing to the high flet. As Frodo prepared to follow him, he laid his hand upon the tree beside the ladder: never before had he been so suddenly and so kee...

I wrote that song for my wife, and it's what some guy who's sitting under a tree would be singing to the woman of his life, telling her how wonderful she is. To me, that's more lasting than something that sounds like it belongs on a movie soundtrack. - John Fogerty Actually it was the mark of the stupid, which is what you get for sitting under a tree during a thunderstorm. - Carl Hiaasen

People who cling to their illusions find it difficult, if not impossible, to learn anything worth learning: a people under the necessity of creating themselves must examine everything, and soak up learning the way the roots of a tree soak up water. - James Baldwin You can't hate the roots of a tree and not hate the tree. - Malcolm X

The redwoods, once seen, leave a mark or create a vision that stays with you always. No one has ever successfully painted or photographed a redwood tree. The feeling they produce is not transferable. From them comes silence and awe. It's not only their unbelievable stature, nor the color which seems to shift and vary under your eyes, no, they are not like any trees we know, they are ambassadors from another time. - John Steinbeck No one has ever successfully painted or photographed a redwood tree. The feeling they produce is not transferable. From them comes silence and awe. - John Steinbeck From the green belt balcony, the wildfires look so pretty Ponderosa canopy, I'd never leave if it were up to me To the ruby redwood tree, and to the velvet climbing ivy painted all mahogany I'd never leave if it were up to me - Owl City I didn't need to understand the hypostatic unity of the Trinity; I just needed to turn my life over to whoever came up with redwood trees. - An...

Schoolchildren and older people like the idea of planting trees. For children, it's interesting that an acorn will grow into an oak, and for older people it's a legacy. And the act of planting a tree is not that difficult. - Clive Anderson I'm planting a tree to teach me to gather strength from my deepest roots. - Andrea Koehle Jones

And remember, even when you can't sing, you can always plant a tree - David Archuleta The great French Marshall Lyautey once asked his gardener to plant a tree. The gardner objected that the tree was slow growing and wouldn't reach maturity for 100 years. The Marshall replied, In that case, there is no time to lose; plant it this afternoon! - John F Kennedy We are a generation of settlers, and without the steel helmet and gun barrel, we shall not be able to plant a tree or build a house. - Moshe Dayan A man may plant a tree for a number of reasons. Perhaps he likes trees. Perhaps he wants shelter. Or perhaps he knows that someday he may need the firewood. - Joanne Harris One has children in the expectation of dying before them. In fact, you want to make damn sure you die before them, just as you plant a tree or build a house knowing, hoping that it will outlive you. That's how the human species has done as well as it has. - Christopher Hitchens Until you dig a hole, y...

Late in August the lure of the mountains becomes irresistible. Seared by the everlasting sunfire, I want to see running water again, embrace a pine tree, cut my initials in the bark of an aspen, get bit by a mosquito, see a mountain bluebird, find a big blue columbine, get lost in the firs, hike above timberline, sunbathe on snow and eat some ice, climb the rocks and stand in the wind at the top of the world on the peak of Tukuhnikivats. - Edward Abbey A pine tree standeth lonely In the North on an upland bare; It standeth whitely shrouded With snow, and sleepeth there. It dreameth of a Palm tree Which far in the East alone, In the mournful silence standeth On its ridge of burning stone. - Heinrich Heine Christmas can be celebrated in the school room with pine trees, tinsel and reindeers, but there must be no mention of the man whose birthday is being celebrated. One wonders how a teacher would answer if a student asked why it was called Christmas. - Ronald Reagan Can you hear the ...

I sit up in bed and watch her fiddle about in the back of my wardrobe. I think she's got a plan. That's what's good about Zoey. She'd better hurry up though, because I'm starting to think of things like carrots. And air. And ducks. And pear trees. Velvet and silk. Lakes. I'm going to miss ice. And the sofa. And the lounge. And the way Cal loves magic tricks. And white things- milk, snow, swans. - Jenny Downham As was the custom in such cases, the pear tree was charged with murder and sentenced to be uprooted and burned. - Robert Graves Oh to be a pear tree any tree in bloom! With kissing bees singing of the beginning of the world! - Zora Neale Hurston She couldn't make him look just like any other man to her. He looked like the love thoughts of women. He could be a bee to a blossom a pear tree blossom in the spring. He seemed to be crushing scent out of the world with his footsteps. Crushing aromatic herbs with every step he took. Spices hung above him...

A pine tree standeth lonely In the North on an upland bare; It standeth whitely shrouded With snow, and sleepeth there. It dreameth of a Palm tree Which far in the East alone, In the mournful silence standeth On its ridge of burning stone. - Heinrich Heine The desired Islamic state might be likened to an orchard planted with olive and palm trees that will take a relatively long time to produce fruit. - Yusuf Al Qaradawi Before a dream is realized, the Soul of the World tests everything that was learned along the way. It does this not because it is evil, but so that we can, in addition to realizing our dreams, master the lessons we've learned as we've moved toward that dream. That's the point at which most people give up. It's the point at which, as we say in the language of the desert, one 'dies of thirst just when the palm trees have appeared on the horizon. - Paulo Coelho I see a girl caught in the remains of a holiday gone bad, with her flesh picked off day a...

Creation destroys as it goes, throws down one tree for the rise of another. But ideal mankind would abolish death, multiply itself million upon million, rear up city upon city, save every parasite alive, until the accumulation of mere existence is swollen to a horror. - David Herbert Lawrence One tree isn't more important than the entire forest, Joe. You taught me that. Remember? Political pruning. (Syd) Yeah, but every forest is always destroyed one tree at a time. You take care of those individual trees because each one that falls brings you closer to deforestation. You only prune what's rotten. You don't cut down a good tree for no reason. (Joe) - Sherrilyn Kenyon He loved to draw. Animals pouncing mostly. And trees. Always lone trees in black landscapes. - Malorie Blackman When you have seen one ant, one bird, one tree, you have not seen them all. - E O Wilson Down the street, the trees are imprisoned equidistantly in square plots of dirt. Everything else is concre...

Heaven and Earth are meeting in a storm that, when it's over, will leave the air purer and the leaves fertile, but before that happens, houses will be destroyed, centuries- old trees will topple, paradises will be flooded. - Paulo Coelho Out here the wild things are healthy, the old trees whose roots find sustenance far below the ill-used layer of topsoil, the occasional rosebush gone to green thicket and thorns, the unstoppable kudzu. It is as if they have decided to take back the land for their own. - Poppy Z Brite A thing which I regret, and which I will try to remedy some time, is that I have never in my life planted a walnut. Nobody does plant them nowadayswhen you see a walnut it is almost invariably an old tree. If you plant a walnut you are planting it for your grandchildren, and who cares a damn for his grandchildren? - George Orwell The old tree brooded over me silently, a living thing. I heard a mouse snoring in the garden weeds. The rooftops of Berkeley looked like ...

You woke up on the wrong side of the oak tree, didn't you? (Acheron) - Sherrilyn Kenyon I could faintly smell the ocean. I imagined being one of the old oak trees standing there swaying in the wind and braving all sorts of weather. I pondered what they had seen in the past and what they might see in the future---Carolina Rain by www.nancybbrewer.com - Nancy B Brewer I believe every...man remembers the girl he thinks he should have married. She reappears to him in his lonely moments, or he sees her in the face of a young girl in the park, buying a snowball under an oak tree by the baseball diamond. But she belongs to back there, to somebody else, and that thought sometimes rends your heart in a way that you never share with anyone else. - James Lee Burke You know, I never imagined there were he-dryads. Not even in an oak tree." One of the giants grinned at him. Druellae snorted. "Stupid! Where do you think acorns come from? - Terry Pratchett The storm was really givin...

I admit that I treed a rheumatic grandfather of mine in the winter of 1850. He was old and inexpert in climbing trees, but with the heartless brutality that is characteristic of me I ran him out of the front door in his night-shirt at the point of a shotgun, and caused him to bowl up a maple tree, where he remained all night, while I emptied shot into his legs. I did this because he snored. I will do it again if I ever have another grandfather. - Mark Twain ...raised herself on one round elbow and looked out on a tiny river like a gleaming blue snake winding itself around a purple hill. Right below the house was a field white as snow with daisies, and the shadow of the huge maple tree that bent over the little house fell lacily across it. Far beyond it were the white crests of Four Winds Harbour and a long range of sun-washed dunes and red cliffs. - L M Montgomery You cannot imprison me!" He bellowed. "I am Hyperion! I am-" The bark closed over his face. Grover took h...

The apple does not fall far from the tree. - Harper Lee Mental Note #50: The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, even though it most desperately wants to. - Notes from Ellen Wasserfeldman - Alisa Steinberg