Tall Tree Quotes & Sayings

Ours is only a little power, seems like, next to theirs," Moss said. "But it goes down deep. It's all roots. It's like an old blackberry thicket. And a wizard's power's like a fir tree, maybe, great and tall and grand, but it'll blow right down in a storm. Nothing kills a blackberry bramble. — Ursula K. Le Guin

He splayed a hand out over the photographs, trembling fingers not quite touching the shiny surface, and then he turned and leaned toward me, slowly, with the improbable grace of a tall tree falling. He buried his face in my shoulder and went very quietly and thoroughly to pieces. — Diana Gabaldon

If I was a flower growing wild and free
All I'd want is you to be my sweet honey bee.
And if I was a tree growing tall and greeen
All I'd want is you to shade me and be my leaves — Barry Louis Polisar

Tall ships and tall kings Three times three, What brought they from the foundered land Over the flowing sea? Seven stars and seven stones And one white tree. (The Two Towers) — J.R.R. Tolkien

Every life form seems to strive to its maximum except human beings. How tall will a tree grow? As tall as it possibly can. Human beings, on the other hand, have been given the dignity of choice. You can choose to be all or you can choose to be less. Why not stretch up to the full measure of the challenge and see what all you can do? — Jim Rohn

Tall tree, Spy-glass shoulder, bearing a point to the N. of N.N.E. Skeleton Island E.S.E. and by E. Ten feet. The bar silver is in the north cache; you can find it by the trend of the east hummock, ten fathoms south of the black crag with the face on it. The arms are easy found, in the sand-hill, N. point of north inlet cape, bearing E. and a quarter N. J.F. That — Robert Louis Stevenson

The Asparagus is not, technically, an asparagus spear, nor is it derived from asparagus parts. It is just a sculpture that bears an uncanny resemblance to a thirty-foot-tall piece of asparagus - although I've also heard it likened to: 1. A green-glass beanstalk 2. An abstract representation of a tree 3. A greener, glassier, uglier Washington Monument 4. The Jolly Green Giant's gigantic jolly green phallus At any rate, it certainly does not look like a Tower of Light, which is the actual name of the sculpture. — John Green

GEORGE AND MARLEE UP IN A TREE! K-I-S-S-I-N-G! We stopped. There was a kid over there, standing by a hackberry bush. I'd never seen him before, not at Mary Day or anywhere else. He wasn't but four and a half feet tall, and stocky. He had on gray shorts that went down all the way to his knees, and a green sweater with orange stripes. It was rounded out up top with little boy-tits and a poochy belly underneath. He had a beanie on his head, the stupid kind with a plastic propeller. His — Stephen King

I want to skip this part. I want to pull on the arm of my slot machine and let the rolls flip over until they show a green tree in the summertime, and me away from that house, walking tall under a blue sky. — Catherynne M Valente

I had actually finished the manuscript of 'The Wild Trees' and turned it in to Random House when all of a sudden word came. Michael Taylor and his colleague, Chris Atkins, another explorer, have just knocked one out of the park. They found the world's tallest tree. The tree is named Hyperion, 379.1 feet tall. — Richard Preston

Stand strong, firm and rooted like a solid tree. Though distractions may cause you to waver, remain balanced and calm. Otherwise, you will surely snap in half and fall to the ground at the slightest hint of difficulty. Be a filter, not a sponge. Learn to remove unnecessary junk from your life before it becomes a part of who you are. Stand tall, stand proud, keep your eyes and your body focused. Otherwise, you will blow away with the slightest gust of wind. — Leigh Hershkovich

Inexperienced in agriculture, the Pilgrims were also not woodspeople; indeed, they were so incurious about their environment that Bradford felt obliged to comment in his journal when Francis Billington . . . climbed to the top of a tall tree to look around. As Thoreau noted with disgust, the colonists landed at Plymouth on December 16, but it was not until January 8 that one of them went as far away as two miles--and even then the traveler was, again, Francis Billington. — Charles C. Mann

Fear helps us survive. I've spent a larger portion of my life being afraid than I have being in control. But, here I am. Forget this escape idea, son. It won't help you or your family. Play the game. Find a tall tree somewhere. A tree that's survived all the coups and massacres of history. Go to that tree and dig a hole near its roots and bury your pride there. — Colin Cotterill

Snuggle up with a hot fireman! Meet Tanner West.
Sharon looked up into the most gorgeous face she had ever seen. Eyes like dark chocolate, deep and warm, stared out at her from a face that looked like it could have been chiseled in stone. Skin the color of burnished copper, high cheekbones, a sharp nose, full lips, and a cleft chin. How the hell had she failed to notice him before? Her heart skipped a beat and she ran her gaze down the rest of his body. He was tall, well over six feet, she would guess, with broad shoulders that tapered into a trim waist. His thighs, encased in worn denim, fit like a second skin against legs the size of tree trunks, and oh my, what lay between those thighs ... Her attention snapped back to his face and she could feel the heat of a blush suffuse her skin. — Tamara Hoffa

There is no land like England,
Where'er the light of day be;
There are no hearts like English hearts,
Such hearts of oak as they be;
There is no land like England,
Where'er the light of day be:
There are no men like Englishmen,
So tall and bold as they be!
And these will strike for England,
And man and maid be free
To foil and spoil the tyrant
Beneath the greenwood tree. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

Pity is unto the bird that takes refuge and stands on the tall tree with shallow roots to boast with their sweet melodies for they shall sing a harmonious dirge the day the strong storm will arrive. But the birds that shall build their nest on the tall tree deeply rooted in the soil shall smile and sing hallelujah when they see the storm coming from afar — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

In a few years, the date-tree had grown as tall as a woman, and out of it came a Fairy, who said to Zezolla, "What do you wish for? — Giambattista Basile

I measure myself Against a tall tree I find that I am much taller, For I reach right up to the sun With my eye; And I reach to the shore of the sea With my ear. Nevertheless, I dislike The way the ants crawl In and out of my shadow. — Wallace Stevens

The first tree shudder and fall, far off in the distance. Then he heard his mother call out the kitchen window: "Luke! Inside. Now." He had never disobeyed the order to hide. Even as a toddler, barely able to walk in the backyard's tall grass, he had somehow understood the fear in his mother's voice. But on this day, the day they began taking the woods away, he hesitated. He took one extra breath of the fresh air, scented with clover and honeysuckle and - coming from far away - — Margaret Peterson Haddix

Japanese gardeners, over many centuries, have learned to do things to trees, to clip their roots or trim their branches, to limit their supply of water, air, or sun, so that they live, and for a long time, but only in tiny, shrunken, twisted shapes. Such trees may please us, or they may not. But what could they tell us about the nature of trees? If a tree can be deformed and shrunk, is this, then, its nature? The nature of these trees, given enough of the sun, air, water, soil, and food they need, is to grow like trees, tall and straight. People can be more easily deformed, and worse deformed, even than trees - and more than trees, they feel it, it hurts. But — John Holt

My friend Jonathan had a great tree house. It was awesome. It was like a big fort up in this tall magnolia tree ... That's where we would conduct our very important business, I'm sure, with all our bikes leaning up against a tree and no girls allowed, handling all sorts of important things you handle when you're seven or eight. — Eric Ladin

Every word I write is a seed that I may nurture into a small, beautiful poem or a tall, soaring tree. — Rob Bignell, Editor

Their bony branches grew barer with each tearing wind. Their tall, leaning forms looked like a gateway to a long-abandoned world.
They lived. Their roots were much deeper than mine would ever be. One day my tree would fall and die, gnawed by serpents. — Heather Crews

The sharp knife of dawn glitters in my hand but how bare is everything-tall tall tree infinite air, the unrelaxing tension of the world and only hope, hope only, the kind eagle soars and wheels in flight. — Martin Carter

The hammock hangs on hooks in two trees at the very back of the yard, one is a shortish tree that's only twice my tall and bent over, one is a million times high with silvery leaves. — Emma Donoghue

A disagreement about what?" The voice belonged to Frost, Doyle's second in command. Other than the fact that they were both tall, physically they were almost opposites. The hair that fell in a glimmering curtain to Frost's ankles was silver, a shimmering metallic silver like Christmas tree tinsel. The skin was as white as my own. The eyes were a soft grey like a winter sky before a storm. His face was angular and arrogantly handsome. His shoulders were a touch broader than Doyle's, but other than that they were both very alike and very unalike. He — Laurell K. Hamilton

I stand above the tree level I am a tree I catch wind storm breaths My branches claw I drink sky It stretches me I don't care I catch jokes and luck from tall thin blue air — Marie Ponsot

It was very still. The tree was tall and straggling. It had thrown its briers over a hawthorn-bush, and its long streamers trailed thick, right down to the grass, splashing the darkness everywhere with great spilt stars, pure white. In bosses of ivory and in large splashed stars the roses gleamed on the darkness of foliage and stems and grass. Paul and Miriam stood close together, silent, and watched. Point after point the steady roses shone out to them, seeming to kindle something in their souls. The dusk came like smoke around, and still did not put out the roses. — D.H. Lawrence

Ho! Ho! Ho! To the bottle I go To heal my heart and drown my woe Rain may fall, and wind may blow And many miles be still to go But under a tall tree will I lie And let the clouds go sailing by — J.R.R. Tolkien

The nature of the place ... whether high or low, moist or dry, whether sloping north or south, or bearing tall trees or low shrubs ... generally gives hint as to its inhabitants. — John James Audubon

Worpswede, Worpswede, I cannot get you out of my mind ... Your magnificent pine trees! I call them my men
thick, gnarled, powerful, and tall
yet with the most delicate nerves and fibers in them. — Paula Modersohn-Becker

Jean-Louis had never had a day's illness in his life. He was tall and as gnarled as an oak. The sun had baked his skin until it had the colour and toughness and stillness of a tree. With advancing years, he had lost his tongue. He now never spoke, considering such an activity pointless. — Emile Zola

Down the corridor was not back into the bedroom, which was good ... Okay, she had to argue with her ovaries on that one, since all her feminine instincts were clamoring for her to climb tall, alien, and handsome like a frigging tree. — Mina Carter

By raising tall trees for windbreaks, citrus underneath, and a green manure cover down on the surface, I have found a way to take it easy and let the orchard manage itself! — Masanobu Fukuoka

Through the small tall bathroom window the December yard is gray and scratchy, the tree calligraphic. — Dave Eggers

One afternoon as I just gazed at the topmost branches of those immensely tall trees I began to notice that the uppermost twigs and leaves were lyrical happy dancers glad that they had been apportioned the top, with all that rumbling experience of the whole tree swaying beneath them making their dance, their every jiggle, a huge and communal and mysterious necessity dance, and so just floating up there in the void dancing the meaning of the tree. — Jack Kerouac

The sunshine was delightful, the foliage gently astir, more from the activity of birds than from the breeze. One gallant little bird, doubtless lovelorn, was singing his heart out at the top of a tall tree. — Victor Hugo

In a designed economy there would be no trees, or certainly no very tall trees: no forests, no canopy. Trees are a waste. Trees are extravagant. Tree trunks are standing monuments to futile competition - futile if we think in terms of a planed economy. But the natural economy is not planned. Individual plants compete with other plants, of the same and other species, and the result is that they grow taller and taller, far taller than any planner would recommend. — Richard Dawkins

Instant death is rare. It can be caused by the dislocation of the C2 from the vertebral body. When I see this it's usually in hangings with long sudden drops such as from a bridge or a tall tree, and in motor vehicle and diving accidents when the victim suffers a hyperflexion injury after striking his head on a dashboard or the bottom of a pool. If the spinal cord is severed, the brain is no longer attached to the body. The heart and lungs instantly quit. — Patricia Cornwell

Even after everyone had gone home, the house was filled with the good time they'd had, as if it could linger in the air like the voices and music lingered in memory. Mina wrapped the memory up and put it in her heart; there was a quiet gladness, deep like a tree and tall in her — Cynthia Voigt

Then, without really realizing it, I start to think of one thing I did wrong for each tree I look at. Wide oak - I didn't tell anyone when Ingrid cut herself. Baby oak - the time I told her I was getting sick of hearing about Jayson's arms and his blue shirt. Tall tree with bare branches - the way I would leave when she got depressed and stopped talking. I should have stayed. I should have just sat quietly , so she knew I was with her. — Nina LaCour

But she still had that something which fires the imagination, could still stop one's breath for a moment by a look or gesture that somehow revealed the meaning in common things. She had only to stand in the orchard, to put her hand on a little crab tree and look up at the apples, to make you feel the goodness of planting and tending and harvesting at last. All the strong things of her heart came out in her body, that had been so tireless in serving generous emotions. It was no wonder that her sons stood tall and straight. She was a rich mine of life, like the founders of early races. — Willa Cather

On my cornice linger the ripe black grapes ungathered;
Children fill the groves with the echoes of their glee,
Gathering tawny chestnuts, and shouting when beside them
Drops the heavy fruit of the tall black-walnut tree. — William C. Bryant

A tree there towere Tall and branching That house upholding The hall's wonder Its leaves their hangings Its limbs rafters Its mighty bole In the midst standing. — J.R.R. Tolkien

I am a strong believer that as one moves toward the future, the strongest and clearest way to do it is if you have a good sense of your past. You cannot have a very tall tree without deep roots. — Cesar Pelli

In the dark, the little live Christmas tree, two feet tall, sparkled with tiny coloured lights, like the tears I saw glistening in my brother's eyes. — V.C. Andrews

I found my account in climbing a tree once. It was a tall white pine, on the top of a hill; and though I got well pitched, I was well paid for it, for I discovered new mountains in the horizon which I had never seen before - so much more of the earth and the heavens. I might have walked about the foot of the tree for threescore years and ten, and yet I certainly should never have seen them. — Henry David Thoreau

to know how tall a tree is
I must fall from the top;
that is,
desire burns. — Robin Blaser

One day, I saw a tiny nopalito (cactus sapling) growing not too far from an old tree. I wanted to dig it up and replant it near our house in Zacatecas. I told my mom that I would protect it from the wind and that I would water it every day so that it could grow nice and tall and strong. My mom frowned at me. "You'd be destroying what makes it special," she said. "It's a nopalito, it is it's struggle that makes it so beautiful... — Jose N. Harris

Never worry about the size of your Christmas tree. In the eyes of children, they are all thirty feet tall. — Larry Wilde

My grandmother caught me climbing the highest tree in her yard, the one we were all forbidden to attempt. All five feet of her stood tall as she tilted her head back and squinted up at me. "Well, don't stop now," she said. "If you're going to fall no use doing it from the halfway point. Keep climbing and let's see just how high you can go. — Toni Sorenson

I want my music to sound like throwing yourself out of a tree, or off a tall building, or as if you're being sucked down into the ocean and you can't breathe ... It's something overwhelming and all-encompassing that fills you up, and you're either going to explode with it, or you're just going to disappear. — Florence Welch

The Poplar grows up straight and tall,
The Pear-tree spreads along the wall — Sara Coleridge

I see a good marriage as being like two tall trees growing beside each other, each nourishing the grace of the other. — Lawrence Fagg

A full moon, although less splendid than that earlier on,lit everything around. Before I reached the point where I would have to leave the road and set off across country, the narrow path I was following seemed suddenly to end and disappear behind a large hedge, and there before me, as if blocking my way, stood a single, tall tree, very dark at first against the transparently clear night sky. Out of nowhere, a breeze got up. It set the tender stems of the grasses shivering, made the green blades of the reeds shudder and sent a ripple across the brown waters of a puddle. Like a wave, it lifted up the spreading branches of the tree and, murmuring, climbed the trunk, and then, suddenly, the leaves turned their undersides to the moon and the whole beech tree (because it was a beech) was covered in white as far as the topmost branch.It was only a moment, no more than that, but the memory of it will last as long as my life lasts. — Jose Saramago

A girl is like a young tree, she said. You must stand tall and listen to your mother standing next to you. That is the only way to grow strong and straight. But if you bend to listen to other people, you will grow crooked and weak. You will fall to the ground with the first strong wind. And then you will be like a weed, growing wild in any direction, running along the ground until someone pulls you out and throws you away. — Amy Tan

Once upon a time there was a crooked tree and a straight tree. And they grew next to each other. And every day the straight tree would look at the crooked tree and he would say, "You're crooked. You've always been crooked and you'll continue to be crooked. But look at me! Look at me!" said the straight tree. He said, "I'm tall and I'm straight." And then one day the lumberjacks came into the forest and looked around, and the manager in charge said, "Cut all the straight trees." And that crooked tree is still there to this day, growing strong and growing strange. — Tom Waits

Whenever you leave cleared land, when you step from some place carved out, plowed, or traced by a human and pass into the woods, you must leave something of yourself behind. It is that sudden loss, I think, even more than the difficulty of walking through undergrowth, that keeps people firmly fixed to paths. In the woods, there is no right way to go, of course, no trail to follow but the law of growth. You must leave behind the notion that things are right. Just look around you. Here is the way things are. Twisted, fallen, split at the root. What grows best does so at the expense of what's beneath. A white birch feeds on the pulp of an old hemlock and supports the grapevine that will slowly throttle it. In the dead wood of another tree grow fungi black as devil's hooves. Overhead the canopy, tall pines that whistle and shudder and choke off light from their own lower branches. (from "Revival Road") — Louise Erdrich

The dark and the snow are too thick for him to see beyond the first trees. He's been in there before at this time, when the dark shuts down in early winter. But now he pays attention, he notices something about the bush that he thinks he has missed those other times. How tangled up in itself it is, how dense and secret. It's not a matter of one tree after another, it's all the trees together, aiding and abetting one another and weaving into one thing. A transformation, behind your back.
There's another name for the bush, and this name is stalking around in his mind, in and out of where he can almost grasp it. But not quite. It's a tall word that seems ominous but indifferent. — Alice Munro

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

Phocion compared the speeches of Leosthenes to cypress-trees. "They are tall," said he, "and comely, but bear no fruit. — Plutarch

It represented how Mother had lived: reach for the heavens, be firm, be unique, and don't be swayed by other people's ideas. Everything in nature has its own splendor. A flower doesn't care if it's not as tall as a tree. Bees ignore birds. Thunder doesn't compete against a volcano. She must be like that. — Mariko Tatsumoto

You are like that spark of fire, that fell on a leaf and burnt the whole tree down gradually. Look at me now, all you can see is the memories and reflections of a tree that stood tall and strong once before. But I will not let you win. I will show you, how life can rise again from just ashes and dust. — Akshay Vasu

For a tree to become tall it must grow tough roots among the rocks. — Friedrich Nietzsche

One time I saw a tiny Joshua tree sapling growing not too far from the old tree. I wanted to dig it up and replant it near our house. I told Mom that I would protect it from the wind and water it every day so that it could grow nice and tall and straight. Mom frowned at me. "You'd be destroying what makes it special," she said. "It's the Joshua tree's struggle that gives it its beauty. — Jeannette Walls

The Redwood Tree

My father once told me a story about an old redwood tree - how she stood tall and proud - her sprawling limbs clothed in emerald green. With a smile, he described her as a mere sapling, sheltered by her elders and basking in the safety of the warm, dappled light. But as this tree grew taller, she found herself at the mercy of the cruel wind and the vicious rain. Together, they tore relentlessly at her pretty boughs, until she felt as though her heart would split in two.

After a long, thoughtful pause, my father turned to me and said, "My daughter, one day the same thing will happen to you. And when that time comes, remember the redwood tree. Do not worry about the cruel wind or the vicious rain - but do as that tree did and just keep growing. — Lang Leav

An oak tree and a rosebush grew,
Young and green together,
Talking the talk of growing things-
Wind and water and weather.
And while the rosebush sweetly bloomed
The oak tree grew so high
That now it spoke of newer things-
Eagles, mountain peaks and sky.
"I guess you think you're pretty great,"
The rose was heard to cry,
Screaming as loud as it possibly could
To the treetop in the sky.
"And now you have no time for flower talk,
Now that you've grown so tall."
"It's not so much that I've grown," said the tree,
"It's just that you've stayed so small. — Shel Silverstein

There, before me, was a pond surrounded by large patches of tall grass and spindly trees that swayed gently with the cool breeze. In the middle of the water was a man hunched over, bound to two tree stumps. He was moaning and in pain. I could feel it from where I stood. I moved towards him but stopped when a deep voice spoke in the darkness.
"Do not touch him. — Brynn Myers

I thought the trees down in Lady Zelana's country were about as big as a tree could get," he said, "but the ones around here are so tall that they probably tickle the moon's tummy when she goes by. — David Eddings

On two chairs beneath the bole of the tree and canopied by a living bough there sat, side by side, Celeborn and Galadriel. Very tall they were, and the Lady no less tall than the Lord; and they were grave and beautiful. They were clad wholly in white; and the hair of the Lady was of deep gold, and the hair of the Lord Celeborn was of silver long and bright; but no sign of age was upon them, unless it were in the depths of their eyes; for these were keen as lances in the starlight, and yet profound, the wells of deep memory. — J.R.R. Tolkien

The last dying days of summer, fall coming on fast. A cold night, the first of the season, a change from the usual bland Maryland climate. Cold, thought the boy; his mind felt numb. The trees he could see through his bedroom window were tall charcoal sticks, shivering, afraid of the wind or only trying to stand against it. Every tree was alone out there. The animals were alone, each in its hole, in its thin fur, and anything that got hit on the road tonight would die alone. Before morning, he thought, its blood would freeze in the cracks of the asphalt. — Poppy Z. Brite

could see people standing on the beach staring at the wave, immobilized, in a trance, as if they were watching a movie. They didn't think that what was happening in the ocean would reach the shore. Even if they ran as fast as they could, they wouldn't have been able to escape it. They were screening a new clip from Thailand or Indonesia. It showed a little boy climbing up the trunk of a tree as the tidal wave flattened the tall palm trees. "The earthquake started near the Sumatra Islands in Indonesia. — Dorit Sliverman

The chestnut's proud, and the lilac's pretty, The poplar's gentle and tall, But the plane tree's kind to the poor dull city - I love him best of all. — E. Nesbit

As the palm-tree standeth so straight and so tall, The more the hail beats, and the more the rains fall. — Simon Dach

Change appears to us mysterious because it is invisible. It is impossible to see a tree grow tall or a man grow old, except with the precarious imagination of hindsight. A tree is small, and later it is tall. A man is young, and later he is old. A people are at peace, and later they are at war. In each case, the intermediate states are at once infinitely many and infinitely complex, which is why they exceed our finite perceptions. — Daniel Tammet

The Flowers
All the names I know from nurse:
Gardener's garters, Shepherd's purse,
Bachelor's buttons, Lady's smock,
And the Lady Hollyhock.
Fairy places, fairy things,
Fairy woods where the wild bee wings,
Tiny trees for tiny dames
These must all be fairy names!
Tiny woods below whose boughs
Shady fairies weave a house;
Tiny tree-tops, rose or thyme,
Where the braver fairies climb!
Fair are grown-up people's trees,
But the fairest woods are these;
Where, if I were not so tall,
I should live for good and all — Robert Louis Stevenson

Without roots a tree, no matter how tall, cannot stand. — Matshona Dhliwayo

Lies can't grow. Once plucked they can only wither. But every truth, once planted, grows into a tall, noble tree. — Stefan Emunds

He that climbs the tall tree has won right to the fruit, He that leaps the wide gulf should prevail in his suit. — Walter Scott

And then, in a skittering, chittering rush, it came. The hand, running high on its fingertips, scrabbled through the tall grass and up onto a tree stump. It stood there for a moment, like crab tasting the air, and then it made one triumphant, nail-clacking leap onto the center of the tablecloth.
Time slowed for Coraline. The white fingers closed around the black key ... — Neil Gaiman

It were a blessed sight to see That child become a willow tree, His brother trees among. He'd be four times as tall as me, And live three times as long. — Catherine Maria Fanshawe

PATER PROFUNDUS. [Far below] The chasm at my feet, dark, yawning, Rests on a chasm deeper still, A thousand streams, their waters joining, In a cascade terrific fall; The tree's own life, its strength from nature, Its trunk lifts skywards straight and tall - All, all, show love's almighty power That shapes all things, cares for them all. The storm breaks round me, fiercely howling, The woods, ravines, all seem to quake, 12240 And yet, swelled by the deluge falling, The torrent plunges down the rock To water lovingly the valley; The lightning burns the overcast And clears the air, now smelling freshly, Of all its foulness, dankness, mist - All love proclaim! the creating power By which the whole world is embraced. Oh kindle, too, in me your fire, Whose thoughts, disordered, cold, depressed, 12250 Inside the cage of dull sense languish, Tormented, helpless, hard beset! Dear God, relieve my spirit's anguish, My needy heart illuminate! — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

I will raise you like my own," I promised the tiny basil pot that day. "I will give you sunlight, I will give you water, I will give you love."
"I will eat your limbs," my girlfriend helpfully added rubbing her belly and licking her lips like a grizzly bear gazing up at a sticky beehive in a tall pine tree. — Neil Pasricha

As I have put it before, if the second dinosaur to the left of the tall cycad tree had not happened to sneeze and thereby fail to catch the tiny, shrew-like ancestor of all the mammals, we would none of us be here. We all can regard ourselves as exquisitely improbable. But here, in a triumph of hindsight, we are. — Richard Dawkins

My kids are starting to notice I'm a little different from the other dads. "Why don't you have a straight job like everyone else?" they asked me the other day.
I told them this story:
In the forest, there was a crooked tree and a straight tree. Every day, the straight tree would say to the crooked tree, "Look at me ... I'm tall, and I'm straight, and I'm handsome. Look at you ... you're all crooked and bent over. No one wants to look at you." And they grew up in that forest together. And then one day the loggers came, and they saw the crooked tree and the straight tree, and they said, "Just cut the straight trees and leave the rest." So the loggers turned all the straight trees into lumber and toothpicks and paper. And the crooked tree is still there, growing stronger and stranger every day. — Tom Waits

Every bonsai
dreams of being a tall tree -
until the wind blows — Don Barnard

I am the daughter of a tall, strong tree. My timber forms a ship, but it is anchorless, flagless. I set sail for the shade and the light; I drink the wind and forget all ports. To hell with freedom, gifted or seized; if in doubt, always endure alone. — Nina George

This leaf has fallen from its mother and withered. Yet the tree does not mourn the loss. While barren, it stands tall, ready to bear the burden of winter, for it knows that through hardship comes renewal. — D.J. Niko

But, Aunt... I don't want to go to the grave site set aside for me a few years ago at the ancestral grave site. I don't want to go there. When I lived here and woke up from the fog in my head, I would walk by myself to the grave site set aside for me, so that I could feel comfortable if I lived there after death. It was sunny, and I liked the pine tree that stood bent but tall, but remaining a member of this family even in death would be too much and too hard. To try to change my mind, I would sing and pull weeds, sitting there until the sun set, but nothing made me feel comfortable there. I lived with this family for over fifty years; please let me go now. — Kyung-Sook Shin

Rumi advised me to keep my spirit
up in the branches of a tree and not peek
out too far, so I keep mine in the very tall
willows along the irrigation ditch out back — Jim Harrison

Grandpappy told my pappy, back in my day son, a man had to answer for the wicked he done. Take all the rope in Texas, find a tall oak tree, round up all the bad boys, and hang them in the streets for all the people to see. — Toby Keith

Rest at pale evening ... A tall slim tree ... Night coming tenderly Black like me — Langston Hughes

By depending on the great, The small may rise high. See: the little plant ascending the tall tree Has climbed to the top. — Saskya Pandita

She was a very small girl with a face as lovely and fresh as her son's face - a very small girl. Most of the time she knew she was smarter and prettier than anyone else. But now and then a lonely fear would fall upon her so that she seemed surrounded by a tree-tall forest of enemies. Then every thought and word and look was aimed to hurt her, and she had no place to run and no place to hide. And she would cry in panic because there was no escape and no sanctuary.

Then one day she was reading a book - brown, with a silver title, and the cloth was broken and the boards thick. It was Alice in Wonderland. But it was the bottle which said, "Drink me" that had changed her life. — John Steinbeck

The forest has been growing for hundreds of years. Each time a child is born, a tree is planted. You could see from his tree how old a person was. The tall and thick tree trunks, which gave the most shade, belonged to people who had already returned to the spirit world. But the trees of the living and the dead stood in the same grove, sought their nourishment from the same soil and the same rain. They stood there waiting for the children that were not yet born, the trees that had not yet been planted. In that way the forest would grow, and the age of the village would be visible for all time. No one could tell from a tree whether someone was dead, only that he had been born. — Henning Mankell

Scarcely has night arrived to undeceive, unfurling her wings of crepe (wings drained even of the glimmer just now dying in the tree-tops); scarcely has the last glint still dancing on the burnished metal heights of the tall towers ceased to fade, like a still glowing coal in a spent brazier, which whitens gradually beneath the ashes, and soon is indistinguishable from the abandoned hearth, than a fearful murmur rises amongst them, their teeth chatter with despair and rage, they hasten and scatter in their dread, finding witches everywhere, and ghosts. It is night ... and Hell will gape once more. — Charles Nodier

tree with a tall thin glass of minted ice tea and a — Denise Nicholas

In a future that portends stronger and more-frequent hurricanes striking North America's Atlantic coast, ferocious winds will pummel tall, unsteady structures. Some will topple, knocking down others. Like a gap in the forest when a giant tree falls, new growth will rush in. Gradually, the asphalt jungle will give way to a real one. — Alan Weisman

If a hundred-foot oak tree had the mind of a human, it would only grow to be ten feet tall! — T. Harv Eker

If the second dinosaur to the left of the tall cycad tree had not happened to sneeze and thereby fail to catch the tiny, shrew-like ancestor of all the mammals, we should none of us be here. — Richard Dawkins