Hanging Tree Quotes & Sayings

They found the lost scouts hanging head downward from the limbs of a fireblacked paloverde tree. They were skewered through the cords of their heels with sharpened shuttles of green wood and they hung gray and naked above the dead ashes of the coals where they'd been roasted until their heads had charred and the brains bubbled in the skulls and steam sang from their noseholes. Their tongues were drawn out and held with sharpened sticks thrust through them and they had been docked of their ears and their torsos were sliced open with flints until the entrails hung down on their chests. Some of the men pushed forward with their knives and cut the bodies down and they left them there in the ashes. — Cormac McCarthy

A pretty woman is a Christmas tree,' my mother told me in the airport. This fella is hanging things on my branches as his gaze sweeps from my face all the way down my body to my hips and then back to my face. Ideas fly from his widened eyes and land on me like teeny, decorative burdens. He is giving me shyness, maybe, some book smarts, and a certain yielding sweetness in bed. The oil-slick eyes get me, and I find myself hanging a few ornaments myself, giving him deft hands and a sense of humor. — Joshilyn Jackson

If bad decorating was a hanging offense, there'd be bodies hanging from every tree! — Sylvester Stallone

Was I the only one who became unsettled and swoonish at the sight of a large, inverted carcass hanging from a tree, its vital organs strewn about like children's toys, the occasional pack of hunting dogs fighting over a lung, another one looking for a quiet place to enjoy the severed head? It happened all the time and nobody else seemed bothered. People just walked up to the bloody carcasses and carried on entirely normal conversations, as though a man wasn't standing there squeezing deer feces out of a large intestine and small children weren't playing football with a liver. — Harrison Scott Key

In every forest, on every farm, in every orchard on earth, it's what's under the ground that creates what's above the ground. That's why placing your attention on the fruits that you have already grown is futile. You cannot change the fruits that are already hanging on the tree. You can, however, change tomorrow's fruits. But to do so, you will have to dig below the ground and strengthen the roots. — T. Harv Eker

AMENTACEOUS (AMENTA'CEOUS) adj.[amentatus, Lat.]Hanging as by a thread. The pine tree hath amentaceous flowers or katkins.Miller. — Samuel Johnson

As soon as I turned the key I saw it hanging, the color of fire and sunset. the colour of flamboyant flowers. 'If you are buried under a flamboyant tree, ' I said, 'your soul is lifted up when it flowers. Everyone wants that.'

She shook her head but she did not move or touch me. — Jean Rhys

When I was a child, my December weekends were spent making cards, decorating the tree, hanging the wreath and preparing brandy butter and peppermint creams. — Pippa Middleton

I'll never see Ivy alive again.
But she's still everywhere. In every drop of bubbling swamp water. In every leaf hanging from every tree. In every speck of swamp mud. In every blade of grass. In every gift she left behind for me: two sacks of miscellaneous objects, a grass bracelet, her home, her love, and my life.
A swamp angel named Ivy lived in my backyard. And now she doesn't.
But wherever she is, I know she's watching me.
Just like the angel she's always been. — Colleen Boyd

If the Romans regarded crucifixion with horror, so did the Jews, though for a different reason. They made no distinction between a 'tree' and a 'cross', and so between a hanging and a crucifixion. They therefore automatically applied to crucified criminals the terrible statement of the law that 'anyone who is hung on a tree is under God's curse' (Deut. 21:23). They could not bring themselves to believe that God's Messiah would die under his curse, strung up on a tree. — John R.W. Stott

All art must be for the end of liberating the masses. A landscape is only good when it shows the oppressor hanging from a tree. — Ishmael Reed

Most animals sleep in a hole in the ground or hanging from a tree. Man alone has made for himself an elaborate resting place. And yet he is the only one to have developed the alarm clock to rouse himself from it, the only species to spend sixteen or more hours of each day away from it. — James Rozoff

Where's your boyfriend, District 12? Still hanging on?" She asks.
Well, as long as we're talking I'm alive. "He's out there now. Hunting Cato," I snarl at her. Then I scream at the top of my lungs. "Peeta!"
Clove jams her fist into my windpipe, very effectively cutting off my voice. But her head's whipping from side to side, and I know for a moment she's at least considering I'm telling the truth. Since no Peeta appears to save me, she turns back to me.
"Liar," she says with a grin. "He's nearly dead. Cato knows where he cut him. You've probably got him strapped up in some tree while you try to keep his heart going. What's in the pretty little backpack? That medicine for Lover Boy? Too bad he'll never get it. — Suzanne Collins

As I look around, I get this sinking feeling that we're off track, that there's something sick in the soul of our country. I examine the fruit that's hanging on the tree of America, and I can see that it's rotting. And that concerns me deeply. — Kirk Cameron

Maybe I'll be like that man in The Hanging Tree'. Still waiting for an answer. — Suzanne Collins

Behold the crucifix; what does it symbolize? Pallid incompetence hanging on a tree. — Anton Szandor LaVey

The pool and the miniature vale that contained it, always dark, grew darker still. Looking up after countless kisses, he saw idling fish of mottled gold and silver, black, white, and red, hanging in air above the goddess's upraised hand, and for the first time noticed light streaming from a lamp of silver filigree in the branches of a stunted tree. "Where did they go?" he asked. — Gene Wolfe

Are you, are you
Coming to the tree
They strung up a man
They say who murdered three.
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met at midnight
In the hanging tree.

Are you, are you
Coming to the tree
Where the dead man called out
For his love to flee.
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met at midnight
In the hanging tree.

Are you, are you
Coming to the tree
Where I told you to run,
So we'd both be free.
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met at midnight
In the hanging tree.

Are you, are you
Coming to the tree
Wear a necklace of rope,
Side by side with me.
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met at midnight
In the hanging tree. — Suzanne Collins

Vimes died. The sun dropped out of the sky, giant lizards took over the world, and the stars exploded and went out and all hope vanished and gurgled into the sinktrap of oblivion. And gas filled the firmament and combusted and behold! There was a new heaven - or possibly not. And Disc and Io and and possibly verily life crawled out of the sea - or possibly didn't because it had been made by the gods, and lizards turned to less scaly lizards - or possibly did not. And lizards turned into birds and bugs turned into butterflies and a species of apple turned into banana and a kind of monkey fell out of a tree and realised life was better when you didn't have to spend your time hanging onto something. And in only a few billion years evolved trousers and ornamental stripey hats. Lastly the game of Crocket. And there, magically reincarnated, was Vimes, a little dizzy, standing on the village green looking into the smiling countenance of an enthusiast. — Terry Pratchett

It's another to the body, and it looks like Louis is going down.' My race groaned. It was our people falling. It was another lynching, yet another Black man hanging on a tree. One more woman ambushed and raped. A Black boy whipped and maimed. It was hounds on the trip of a man running through slimy swamps. It was a white woman slapping her maid for being forgetful. — Maya Angelou

Humble' is another way or saying 'simple' or 'poor' like we can't have fun; we can't roll up the rugs and dance, or tap the sap, or make decorations for a tree. It's pious and is just the sort of thing that lectures a room or depresses it, and you have to have a wall hanging because the old biddies say so, but you don't like it and you wish you didn't need it. In fact, you absolutely hate it. — Allan Dare Pearce

Maybe I'll be like the man in the Hanging Tree still waiting for an answer.' Gale who I have never seen cry has tears in his eyes. To keep them from spilling over. I reach forward and press my lips against his. We taste of heat, ashes and misery. — Suzanne Collins

It has always irked me as improper that there are still so many people for whom the sky is no more than a mass of random points of light. I do not see why we should recognize a house, a tree, or a flower here below and not, for example, the red Arcturus up there in the heavens as it hangs from its constellation Bootes, like a basket hanging from a balloon. — M.C. Escher

In the future, when Joss Whedon and I are best friends and hanging out together in my tree fort, I hope Neil Gaiman comes over too. — Patrick Rothfuss

A romantic," said Nightingale much, much later. "The most dangerous people on Earth. — Ben Aaronovitch

There is a possibly apocryphal story that in Southeast Asia, people catch monkeys by placing a banana in a box with a hole in the bottom and hanging the box from a tree. The monkey reaches in and grabs the banana but is unable to withdraw its hand. The clenched fist holding the banana is too big to fit through the hole. To escape, all the monkey has to do is release the banana. Sometimes, the monkeys hold on for a long time and are then captured. People, too, often give up their freedom by holding on to things too long. — Carl Greer

Are you, are you Coming to the tree Wear a necklace of rope, side by side with me. Strange things did happen here No stranger would it be If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree. — Suzanne Collins

Now we see you, you nasty little creature! We will eat you and leave your bones and skin hanging on a tree. Ugh! he's got a sting has he? Well, we'll get him all the same, and then we'll hang him head downwards for a day or two." While — J.R.R. Tolkien

Remember?" he asks. "This is where you kissed me."
So the heavy dose of morphling administered after the whipping wasn't enough to erase that from his consciousness. "I didn't think you'd remember that," I say.
"Have to be dead to forget. Maybe even not then," he tells me. "Maybe I'll be like that man in 'The Hanging Tree'. Still waiting for an answer." Gale, who I have never seen cry, has tears in his eyes. To keep them from spilling over, I reach forward and press my lips against his. We taste of heat, ashes, and misery. It's a surprising flavour for such a gentle kiss. He pulls away first and gives me a wry smile. "I knew you'd kiss me."
"How?" I say. Because I didn't know myself.
"Because I'm in pain," he says. "That's the only way I get your attention." He picks up the box. "Don't worry, Katniss. It'll pass." He leaves me before I can answer. — Suzanne Collins

If my Valentine you won't be,
I'll hang myself on your Christmas tree. — Ernest Hemingway,

...I'm hanging onto my sanity by a thread. I'll have you up against this tree and be inside you in about one second. — Zoe Forward

The Earth reminded us of a Christmas tree ornament hanging in the blackness of space. As we got farther and farther away it diminished in size. Finally it shrank to the size of a marble, the most beautiful marble you can imagine. — James Irwin

See! I went a little farther, and I saw one who hung bleeding upon a tree, and the very sight of Him made my burden fall off my back (for I had groaned under a very heavy burden, but then it fell off). It was a strange thing to see, and I have never seen anything like it before. And while I stood looking up at the one hanging on the cross, three Shining Ones came to me. One of them testified that
my sins were forgiven; another stripped me of my rags and gave me this embroidered coat that you see; and the third gave me the mark that you see on my forehead and gave me this sealed scroll. And with that he plucked it out of his coat. — John Bunyan

We're not fighting for a scrap of sharecropper immortality with the strings hanging off it like Mafioso spaghetti. We want the whole tamale. The Johnsons are taking over the Western Lands. We built it with our brains and our hands. We paid for it with our blood and our lives. It's ours and we're going to take it. And we are not applying in triplicate to the Immortality Control Board. Anybody gets in our way we will get our communal back against a rock or a tree and fight the way a raccoon will fight a fucking dog. — William S. Burroughs

The storm was resting. It didn't want to be, but it was. It had spent a fortnight understudying a famous anticyclone over the Circle Sea, turning up every day, hanging around in the cold front, grateful for a chance to uproot the occasional tree or whirl a farmhouse to any available emerald city of its choice. But the big break in the weather had never come. — Terry Pratchett

Bonnie saw ropes hanging loose, poles falling away, tree-tops sinking beneath her. As they rose, the sun rose with them. Its warmth turned the dark skin of the fiery balloon midnight blue. They flew straight up. Above them, the sweet, clear music of the lonely pipe called to them. Then the smooth sky puckered into cloth-of-blue and drew aside. They passed straight through ... — Pauline Fisk

A plaque hanging on the wall of my home invites me to remember where I came from-each day. It reads, "No matter if a tree grows to more than a thousand feet in height, each leaf, each day, must return to its roots for nourishment." — Mary Ellen W. Smoot

But he could no longer disbelieve in the reality of love, since God Himself had loved his individual soul with divine love from all eternity. Gradually, as his soul was enriched with spiritual knowledge, he saw the whole world forming one vast symmetrical expression of God's power and love. Life became a divine gift for every moment and sensation of which, were it even the sight of a single leaf hanging on the twig of a tree, his soul should praise and thank the Giver. The world for all its solid substance and complexity no longer existed for his soul save as a theorem of divine power and love and universality. — James Joyce

A young girl, a freshman, I met in a bar in Cambridge my junior year at Harvard told me early one fall that "Life is full of endless possibilities." I tried valiantly nog to choke on the beer nuts I was chewing while she gushed this kidney stone of wisdom, and I calmly washed them down with the rest of a Heineken, smiled and concentrated on the dart game that was going on in the corner. Needless to say, she did not live to see her sophomore year.That winter, her body was found floating in the Charles River, decapitated, her head hung from a tree on the bank, her hair knotted around a low-hanging branch, three miles away. — Bret Easton Ellis

Your mom is right here with us, Elle. Her spirit's here giving my exhausted arm strength to keep hanging on. She's keeping the current from whipping us all to hell. She's keeping the tree shrapnel from getting anywhere near us." A small smile formed. "She's keeping us alive. — Nicole Williams

I personally have my own idea of an efficient house. It would be totally concrete with a big drain in the middle, a large fiberglass tree for my kids to swing from and a hose hanging in the corner. — Colleen Down

What I did not yet know so intensely was the hatred of the white American for the black, a hatred so deep that I wonder if every white man in this country, when he plants a tree, doesn't see Negroes hanging from its branches. — Jean Genet

All I really want is enough to live on, a little house in the country ... and a tree in the garden with seven of my enemies hanging in it. — Heinrich Heine

Have you been called to go out on a limb for God? You can bet it won't be easy. Limb-climbing has never been easy. Ask Joseph. Or, better yet, ask Jesus. He knows better than anyone the cost of hanging on a tree. — Max Lucado

The Hanging Man
By the roots of my hair some god got hold of me.
I sizzled in his blue volts like a desert prophet.
The nights snapped out of sight like a lizard's eyelid:
A world of bald white days in a shadeless socket.
A vulturous boredom pinned me in this tree.
If he were I, he would do what I did. — Sylvia Plath

Oh sure, I have a few black people in my family tree. They're probably still hanging there. — Zach Braff

Because criminals know that when they see a house with 2 foot tall grass, a dog on a chain, and an engine hanging from a tree, a gun lives in that house. And if you want to know what kind, just break in at 2 in the morning. — Jeff Foxworthy

Most of all, he was tired of being a holdout, a sole survivor, the last coconut hanging on the last palm tree on the last little atoll in the path of the great wave of late-modern capitalism, waiting to be hammered flat. — Michael Chabon

We must obey God rather than men. 30 The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you had murdered by hanging Him on a tree. 31 God exalted this man to His right hand as ruler and Savior, to grant repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins. 32 We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey Him. — Anonymous

Western Red Cedar bark and cones are distinct. The foliage is not coniferous ... the tree has flat intricate fronds that branch out like lace. It droops down, hanging fingers from each branch. In certain lights, it looks like a tree made of ferns. — Ned Hayes

Song I try to make the step-down call of the chickadee, but do it too insistently, over and over so it loses sense, the air going equally out and back, not slower in the opening, then quickening as the tight hinge retracts, but absolutely evenly, too even, the way one breathes and regulates breath for a doctor, to present the body's equanimity. There's a bird in a tree with a hinge in its throat, a door opening to let the sweet air pass from a high, thin place down a notch. There's phlox out there, opening between one black and another black, hanging branch of an apple tree - the very tree that holds the bird that bends the air so parenthetically around itself, and its song around anything listening. — Lia Purpura

And the roses - the roses! Rising out of the grass, tangled round the sun-dial, wreathing the tree trunks and hanging from their branches, climbing up the walls and spreading over them with long garlands falling in cascades - they came alive day by day, hour by hour. Fair fresh leaves, and buds - and buds - tiny at first but swelling and working Magic until they burst and uncurled into cups of scent delicately spilling themselves over their brims and filling the garden air. Colin — Frances Hodgson Burnett

You cannot be my friend and use the N- word around me. I feel strongly about it ... I always think of the millions of people who heard that as their last word as they were hanging from a tree. — Oprah Winfrey

To tell the truth, I was beginning to think you would be in awe of anyone if you saw the parts of them that no one else gets to see. If you could watch them making up little songs, and doing funny faces in the mirror; if you saw them high-fiving a leaf on a tree, or stopping to watch a green inchworm hanging midair from an invisible thread, or just being really different and lonely and crying sometimes at night. Seeing them, the real them, you couldn't help but think that anyone and everyone is amazing. — Michelle Cuevas

And no, I don't mind if you want to write me again. Even if you do it in one of those kitten-hanging-from-a-tree cards. ~Lincoln — Katie McGarry

I have travelled a good deal in Concord; and everywhere, in shops, and offices, and fields, the inhabitants have appeared to me to be doing penance in a thousand remarkable ways. What I have heard of Bramins sitting exposed to four fires and looking in the face of the sun; or hanging suspended, with their heads downward, over flames; or looking at the heavens over their shoulders "until it becomes impossible for them to resume their natural position, while from the twist of the neck nothing but liquids can pass into the stomach"; or dwelling, chained for life, at the foot of a tree; or measuring with their bodies, like caterpillars, the breadth of vast empires; or standing on one leg on the tops of pillars - even these forms of conscious penance are hardly more incredible and astonishing than the scenes which I daily witness. The — Henry David Thoreau

Write your sins on apples still hanging on the tree; when they fall away so do your burdens (There — Jandy Nelson

As I had to do whenever I glimpsed this river, I thought of Phineas. Not of the tree and pain, but of one of his favorite tricks, Phineas in exaltation, balancing on one foot on the prow of a canoe like a river god, his raised arms invoking the air to support him, face transfigured, body a complex set of balances and compensations, each muscle aligned in perfection with all the others to maintain this supreme fantasy of achievement, his skin glowing from immersions, his whole body hanging between river and sky as though he had transcended gravity and might by gently pushing upward with his foot glide a little way higher and remain suspended in space, encompassing all the glory of the summer and offering it to the sky. — John Knowles

Adults who still derive childlike pleasure from hanging gifts of a ready-made education on the Christmas tree of a child waiting outside the door to life do not realize how unreceptive they are making the children to everything that constitutes the true surprise of life. — Karl Kraus

Land is a nation's basis for existence. The nation has its roots like those of a tree deep in the country's soil whence it derives its nourishment and life. There is no people that can live without land, as there is no tree which can live hanging in air. — Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

Ex-Im is the lowest of low-hanging fruit in the sprawling tree of American political corruption. And yet House Republicans cannot seem to pluck it. — Anonymous