#tree

I don't want to be a tree; I want to be its meaning. ↗

— Orhan Pamuk

#trees

A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but won't cross the street to vote in a national election. ↗

— Bill Vaughan

#citizen #cross #democracy #election #fight

I felt that I was not, never had been and never would be a living part of this overpoweringly solid and deeply meaningful world around me. ↗

— John Knowles

#gene #john-knowles #phineas #tree #separation

Just at present you only see the tree by the light of the lamp. I wonder when you would ever see the lamp by the light of the tree. ↗

— G.K. Chesterton

#gabriel-syme #lamp #order #tree #funny

In clear-cutting, he said, you clear away the natural forest, or what the industrial forester calls "weed trees," and plant all one species of tree in neat straight functional rows like corn, sorghum, sugar beets or any other practical farm crop. You then dump on chemical fertilizers to replace the washed-away humus, inject the seedlings with growth-forcing hormones, surround your plot with deer repellants and raise a uniform crop of trees, all identical. When the trees reach a certain prespecified height (not maturity; that takes too long) you send in a fleet of tree-harvesting machines and cut the fuckers down. All of them. Then burn the slash, and harrow, seed, fertilize all over again, round and round and round again, faster and faster, tighter and tighter until, like the fabled Malaysian Concentric Bird which flies in ever-smaller circles, you disappear up your own asshole. ↗

— Edward Abbey

#hayduke #tree-farming #nature

trees [-] Inside their wooden samurai armor they are geisha beauties, each one a ‘person-of-the-arts,’ limbs dancing, arranging flowers, carrying the wind’s music, the calligraphy of their roots pure poetry, rhyming earth and berth. ↗

— A. A. Attanasio

#trees #art

Nick? Have you ever…” ”No.” He lifted his head again, studied me. “I’ve thought about it, but it never seemed right.” The idea of him making love to anyone else sent a shaft of pain straight through my middle. “You better wait on me, damn it.” ”I don’t think I have much choice.” He brushed my hair back. “You’re the only one I’ve ever wanted, Alix, the only one I’ll ever want. That’s a promise. ↗

— Katherine Allred

#katherine-allred #love #sex #the-sweet-gum-tree #love

Little tree filled his lungs with the white airness of the night, as if he were going to fly. The living voice of his parents. Elisha's eyes. These were reasons enough to set off on another adventure. Reasons to be Toby Lolness again. ↗

— Timothée de Fombelle

#elisha #little #living #parents #reasons

Someday you'll remember what I said and you'll thank me for it." Francie wished adults would stop telling her that. Already the load of thanks in the future was weighing her down. She figured she'd have to spend the best years of her womanhood hunting up people to tell them that they were right and to thank them. ↗

— Betty Smith

#betty-smith #humor #thanks #humor

...trees to cool the towns in the boiling summer, trees to hold back the winter winds. There were so many things a tree could do: add color, provide shade, drop fruit, or become a children's playground, a whole sky universe to climb and hang from; an architecture of food and pleasure, that was a tree. But most of all the trees would distill an icy air for the lungs, and a gentle rustling for the ear when you lay nights in your snowy bed and were gentled to sleep by the sound. ↗

— Ray Bradbury

#architecture