#tree

I looked around the garden, the sun feeling warm on my back. "So why are you here? I would think you'd want to be as far away from a hurricane as possible." She looked at me as if I'd just suggested streaking down the beach. It took her a moment to answer. "Because this is home." She wanted to see if the words registered with me, but I just looked back at her, not understanding at all. After a deep breath, she looked up at a tall oak tree beyond the garden, its leaves still green against the early October sky, the limbs now thick with foliage. "Because the water recedes, and the sun comes out, and the trees grow back. Because" -she spread her hands, indicated the garden and the trees and, I imagined, the entire peninsula of Biloxi- "because we've learned that great tragedy gives us opportunities for great kindness. It's like a needed reminder that the human spirit is alive and well despite all evidence to the contrary." She lowered her hands to her sides. "I figured I wasn't dead, so I must not be done ↗

— Karen White

#the-beach-trees #imagination

Earlier 18th-century literary language was not supple enough to connect the life of the imagination to that of the street. ↗

— Rebecca Solnit

#language #street #imagination

Writing a novel is not merely going on a shopping expedition across the border to an unreal land: it is hours and years spent in the factories, the streets, the cathedrals of the imagination. ↗

— Janet Frame

#border #cathedrals #expedition #factories #going

The nutcracker sits under the holiday tree, a guardian of childhood stories. Feed him walnuts and he will crack open a tale... ↗

— Vera Nazarian

#christmas #holiday #holidays #nutcracker #nuts

If we take care of the customers and associates and grow the business, Wall Street will be pleased. ↗

— Lee Scott

#business #care #customers #grow #pleased

I think again about the Tree of Life. A wonderful notion that we as people are all stemmed and thrive from a tree springing life from branches reaching out to help our blood flow and providing oxygen to breathe. ↗

— Nicholas A. McGirr

#life #life-tree #inspirational

A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship. But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease. Every hidden cell is throbbing with music and life, every fiber thrilling like harp strings, while incense is ever flowing from the balsam bells and leaves. No wonder the hills and groves were God's first temples, and the more they are cut down and hewn into cathedrals and churches, the farther off and dimmer seems the Lord himself. ↗

— John Muir

#nature #sounds #trees #life

Tree planting is always a utopian enterprise, it seems to me, a wager on a future the planter doesn't necessarily expect to witness. ↗

— Michael Pollan

#nature #trees #education

Nothing living should ever be treated with contempt. Whatever it is that lives, a man, a tree, or a bird, should be touched gently, because the time is short. Civilization is another word for respect for life... ↗

— Elizabeth Goudge

#civilization #compassion #contempt #man #time

All our wisdom is stored in the trees. ↗

— Santosh Kalwar

#life-and-living #trees #wisdom #life