Quotes & Sayings About Treetops

Elephants, it turns out, are surprisingly stealthy. As the sunlight fades, other species declare their presence. Throngs of zebras and wildebeests thunder by in the distance, trailing dust clouds. Cape buffalo snort and raise their horns and position themselves in front of their young. Giraffes stare over treetops, their huge brown eyes blinking, then lope away in seeming slow motion. But no elephants. — Thomas French

Kolya threw his shoes under the bed and went to the window. There was a full moon, light green and ugly, in the sky. It seemed to be hiding behind the treetops, spying. Its light was soft and lifeless, and its rays were tremulous and mesmerizing, as they penetrated through the branches ... — Fyodor Sologub

The rules of reason build towers that reach past the treetops. The rules of trust build towers that reach past the stars. — Mary E. Pearson

It was magic to be above [the clouds], to see their uppermost contours, the way they caught the light and held it, their vast shadows moving upon the face of the earth. I wished I could open the window and know what the world sounded like at that altitude. I thought about the solitude of that world, how it must be inhabited by the voice of the wind, only. ... I thought about what my crows saw as they flew above canyons and treetops, the birds-eye view of life. They would recognize specific trees, perches, and nesting sites from a completely different perspective than I could. Their maps differed from mine; they knew the topography, the contours of the landscape, on a much grander scale. — Elizabeth J. Church

That was a cozy night, a happy night; lamps lit, sparkle of glasses, rain falling heavy on the roof. Outside, the treetops tumbled and tossed, with a foamy whoosh like club soda bubbling up in the glass. The windows were open and a damp cool breeze swirled through the curtains, bewitchingly wild and sweet. — Donna Tartt

never seen real darkness, not in the city, but how, if you stood peeing off the cabin porch on a moonless night, or took a walk through the woods where the treetops stitched out the stars, you could almost forget you were there, you felt invisible. Country dark, his mother called it. — Tom Franklin

As I sit, my back leaning against a damp, moss-covered tree trunk, my eyes sweeping the canopy above, my ears straining to catch the crack of a distant branch that betrays an orangutan moving in the treetops, I think about how we humans search for God. The tropical rain forest is the most complex thing an ordinary human can experience on this planet. A walk in the rain forest is a walk into the mind of God. — Birute M.F. Galdikas

How was Gengo to know, Saigyo reflected, that this unheroic existence imposed even greater torment than the icy lashings of the Nachi Falls in its thousand-foot leap? How was Gengo to realize that Saigyo had not slept a single night undisturbed since he had fled his home for the Eastern Hills, that his sleep was haunted by the cries of his beloved daughter from whom he had torn himself.
Who knew that during the day, when he went about his tasks of drawing water and chopping wood as he composed verses, the sighting of the wind in the treetops of the valleys below and the pines surrounding the temple sounded to him like the mourning of his young wife, and so troubled his nights that sleep no longer visited him? Never again would Saigyo find peace. He had wrenched asunder the living boughs of the tree that was his life. Remorse and compassion for his loved ones would dog him to the end of his days. — Eiji Yoshikawa

Derby described the incredible artificial weather that Earthlings sometimes create for other Earthlings when they don't want those other Earthlings to inhabit Earth any more. Shells were bursting in the treetops with terrific bangs, he said, showering down knives and needles and razorblades. Little lumps of lead in copper jackets were crisscrossing the woods under the shellbursts, zipping along much faster than sound.
A lot of people were being wounded or killed. So it goes. — Kurt Vonnegut

But to be part of the treetops and the blueness, invisible
the iridescent darknesses beyond,
silent, listening to
the air becoming no air becoming air again — Frank O'Hara

another. A single bird flew by at eye level, then shot straight up to the treetops. A grasshopper landed suddenly on my wrist. Creepy magic. — Gillian Flynn

She told him that from this angle the treetops looked like cauliflower and she had once heard them beckon her to jump, promising her that if she did, they'd bounce her back in the air again. Some days, like today, he was petrified she'd listen to them. — Melina Marchetta

In this quiet corner, the best wild flowers grow, and the first peepers are heard in the spring, even before the snow melts. Here, owls call from the treetops in the early morning, and the irreverent crows hold their noisy conventions. Here, the mother deer has her fawn, and the migrating geese come to rest. It is here that the fox is safe from the hunters. — Alice Provensen

LOW-FLYING, QUICK-MOVING CLOUDS: I haven't long to live.
TREETOPS, ROUNDED AND ROUGH: That's probably true.
LOW-FLYING, QUICK-MOVING CLOUDS: I won't even make it to the sea. I can already see where I'll end.
TREETOPS, ROUNDED AND ROUGH: I don't know what to tell you.
LOW-FLYING, QUICK-MOVING CLOUDS: But the thing is, I really love moving like this, though I know I won't even make it.
TREETOPS, ROUNDED AND ROUGH: There are advantages to flight.
LOW-FLYING, QUICK-MOVING CLOUDS: But thought is its unfitting companion. — Dave Eggers

The weather is certainly unpredictable here,isn't it?"
"It's always unpredictable when the MacLeans are involved."
She turned to look at him. "You've heard the rumors of the curse?"
"I've heard them and believe them." He moved beside her. "Don't you?"
The pocket she needed to reach was on his other side, blast it. "Do you think one of the MacLeans might be angry now?"
He looked over her head to the gathering clouds, a frown settling between his eyes. "Yes," he said quietly. "One of them is growing more furious by the moment."
A fresh wind now tossed the treetops about, the grass rippled like an angry ocean, and the clouds filled the entire sky. — Karen Hawkins

n the treetops, this powerful vision was built for speed - seeing and reacting quickly. On the open grassland, it was the opposite. Safety and finding food relied upon slow, patient observation of the environment, on the ability to pick out details and focus on what they might mean. Our ancestors' survival depended on the intensity of their attention. The longer and harder they looked, the more they could distinguish between an opportunity and a danger. If they simply scanned the horizon quickly they could see a lot more, but this would overload the mind with information - too many details for such sharp vision. The human visual system is not built for scanning, as a cow's is, but for depth of focus. — Robert Greene

I'm flying!
Of course, I'm not flying so much as coasting over the treetops like a hang glider or a freakishly large flying squirrel. — Cynthia Hand

In a shadowy place something white flew up. It was a heron, and it went away over the dark treetops. William Wallace followed it with his eyes and Brucie clapped his hands, but Virgil gave a sigh, as if he knew that when you go looking for what is lost, everything is a sign.
("The Wide Net") — Eudora Welty

When the sun slips o'er the treetops,
then small birds fly off to nest.
Feel the peace lie on the meadows,
'tis a time that I love best.
Slumber on, little one,
I am ever near.
Drowsily, lean on me,
dream small dreams, my dear.
All the jewelled stars a-twinkle,
Watch the clouds drift through the night.
Sail upon thy boats of dreaming,
to the rays of dawning's light.
Slumber on, day is gone,
by thy side I'll lay.
Fear no harm, rest in calm,
'til the golden day. — Brian Jacques

The sky over Patusan was blood-red, immense, streaming like an open vein. An enormous sun nestled crimson amongst the treetops, and the forest below had a black and forbidding face. — Joseph Conrad

There are times in history when the dark drums of God can barely be heard amid the noises of this world. Then it is only in moments of silence, which are rare and brief, that their beat can be faintly discerned. There are other times. These are the times when God is heard in rolling thunder, when the earth trembles and the treetops bend under the force of [God's] voice. It is not given to men [and women] to make God speak. It is only given to them to live and to think in such a way that, if God's thunder should come, they will not have stopped their ears. — Peter L. Berger

There was still a bit of sunshine in the sky, not that it mattered. High treetops and reaching branches entombed us from above in a dark coffin. It was still in the afternoon. We had time to gather things together for camp, but the choked rays that permeated the living casket were sputtering their last bits of life.

- Tyrus Savage narration from ORRLETH, Volume One of the Orrleth Young Adult Fantasy Paranormal Series — Thomas McClellan

The sensitive ear of the musician detects a certain musical note in every city which is different from that of another city. He hears in each little brook a new melody, and to him the sound of wind in the treetops of different forests give a varying sound. — Max Heindel

That's it. Curtains. Off to the races. Treetops. Seashells and balloons. — Al McGuire

And he rose, brontosaurus-like, to his place among the treetops. — Jeffrey Eugenides

And Lotto beamed with pleasure, preening, eyes darting around to see which kind soul in the room could have sent along the champagne, the force of his delight such that wherever his eyes landed, the recipients of the gaze would look up out of their food and conversation. and a startled expression would come over their face, a flush, and nearly everyone began grinning back, so that on this spangled early evening with the sun shining through the windows in gold streams, and the treetops rustling in the wind, and the streets full of congregating, relieved people, Lotto sparked upwellings of inexplicable glee in dozens of chests, lightening the already buoyant mood in one swift wave. Animal magnetism is real. It spreads through bodily convection. Even Ariel smiled back. The stunned grin stayed on the faces of some people, an expressions of speculation growing, hoping he would look at them again, or wondering who he was because on this day, and in this world, he was someone. — Lauren Groff

Trees are like people and give the answers to the way of Man. They grow from the top down. Children, like treetops, have flexibility of youth, and sway more than larger adults at the bottom. They are more vulnerable to the elements, and are put to the test of survival by life's strong winds, rain, freezing cold, and hot sun. Constantly challenged. As they mature, they journey down the tree, strengthening the family unit until one day they have become big hefty branches. In the stillness below, having weathered the seasons, they now relax in their old age, no longer subject to the stress from above. It's always warmer and more enclosed at the base of the tree. The members remain protected and strong as they bear the weight and give support to the entire tree. They have the endurance. — Ralph Helfer

Mankind is supposed to have evolved in the treetops. But I have examined my sense of balance, the prehensility of my various appendages, and my attitude toward standing on anything higher
than, say, political principles, and I have concluded that, personally, I evolved in the backseat of a car. — P. J. O'Rourke

Should we only be interested to view the cherry blossoms at their peak, or the moon when it is full? To yearn for the moon when it is raining, or to be closed up in ones room, failing to notice the passing of Spring, is far more moving. Treetops just before they break into blossom, or gardens strewn with fallen flowers are just as worthy of notice. There is much to see in them. Is it any less wonderful to say, in the preface to a poem, that it was written on viewing the cherry blossoms just after they had peaked, or that something had prevented one from seeing them altogether, than to say "on seeing the cherry blossoms"? Of course not. Flowers fall and the moon sets, these are the cyclic things of the world, but still there are brutish people who say that there is nothing left worth seeing, and fail to appreciate. — Yoshida Kenko

She said, "Daddy thinks that all the world's magic is almost evolved out."
I thought of Roebuck Lake, its swamps and sloughs and loblollies and breaks of cypress and cane, its sunken treetops and stobs and bream beds and sleepy gar rolling over and over and over, its baptizing pools and bridges and mussels and mosquitoes and turkey vultures and, now in the drought, the gray flaking mud-flats and logs crowded with turtles and sometimes a fat snake yawning its tame old cottony mouth like a well-fed dog in a pen.
I said, "Is that what the freak show is?"
She said, "Dirty miracles. — Lewis Nordan

Meng flew low over the darkness of the treetops, thinking of Meabel's silky body, his jealousy like a living entity inside him, swelling with each mortal that fell to his sister's myriad charms - men she had not yet consumed. — Georgina Anne Taylor

Your eyes are beautiful, he said, and she felt warm suddenly, warm in the sun that dappled through the treetops and rested on them in patches. — Kristin Cashore

Science, freedom, beauty, adventure: what more could you ask of life? Aviation combined all the elements I loved. There was science in each curve of an airfoil, in each angle between strut and wire, in the gap of a spark plug or the color of the exhaust flame. There was freedom in the unlimited horizon, on the open fields where one landed. A pilot was surrounded by beauty of earth and sky. He brushed treetops with the birds, leapt valleys and rivers, explored the cloud canyons he had gazed at as a child. Adventure lay in each puff of wind. — Charles Lindbergh

If I be just a page torn out of a book,
May I sail forever over the oceans blue,
Float over the treetops and the mountains too,
Drift across the valleys and the flowers look,
Until at last, I rest and kiss the morning dew. — Nancy B. Brewer

And she arose from her deathbed in a gossamer gown, with eyes the color of starlight and hair as black as the night. And those who were her captors trembled, for the scent of death and madness emanated from her soul, and yet she was not dead. She moved like the spiders that creep in the treetops, and none could look away.
Taking her first captor in hand, she fed deep and ravenous. And so it was that Myst, Queen of the Indigo Court, was born from the blood of the dead. — Yasmine Galenorn

My sudden awareness of my foolishness made me calm. I looked up through the treetops, ludicrously hopeful. I think I was half prepared, in my dark, demented state, to see God, bearded and grey as geometry, scowling down at me, shaking his bloodless finger.
"Why can't I have someone to talk to?" I said. The stars said nothing, but I pretended to ignore the rudeness. — John Gardner

Slowly, like a breeze going through treetops, they doff their hats and bow, and I realize that they are acknowledging me as queen, queen in the place of Margaret of Anjou, Queen of England, the greatest woman in the realm, and nothing in my life will ever be the same again. I — Philippa Gregory

When on the island I sometimes imagined an inverse world, in which concert halls would be turned over to the sounds of rain and the rustling of winds while in the treetops and on the weirs and behind the walls of factories, sonatas and symphonies would ring out; in a world such as this the damp on the plastering of walls would probably form coherent text while the pages of books would be covered with indistinct marks. — Michal Ajvaz

We went on, cutting through the branches, and it was as if we were swimming through a sea of leaves, with the bushes as waves rising and falling and rising around us, and flinging their green sprays high to the treetops. — Ayn Rand

Between the dark, heavily laden treetops of the spreading chestnut trees could be seen the dark blue of the sky, full of stars, all solemn and golden, which extended their radiance unconcernedly into the distance. That was the nature of the stars. and the trees bore their buds and blossoms and scars for everyone to see, and whether it signified pleasure or pain, they accepted the strong will to live. flies that lived only for a day swarmed toward their death. every life had its radiance and beauty. i had insight into it all for a moment, understood it and found it good, and also found my life and sorrows good. — Hermann Hesse

If everybody would leave him alone for just a little while, he thought, he
wouldn't cause anybody any more trouble. He would turn to steam and float up among
the treetops. — Kurt Vonnegut

She thought of the things that lovely young women usually think about when they are relaxing in treetops and unhampered by underwear. — Tom Robbins

A lone figure stood in the doorway of crumbling bricks, the sun just poking its rays over the treetops.
She was dressed in a simple white gown. Her hair was also white, flowing freely down over her shoulders. Her face was aged, but not overly so. She looked to be roughly sixty human years. She glanced at us and swung her arm toward the interior of the church.
"Won't you come in? — Amanda Carlson

Over all the mountain tops is peace. In all treetops you perceive scarcely a breath. The little birds in the forest are silent. Wait then; soon, you too, will have peace. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

A sudden wind thrashed the treetops in the garden, sweeping down from the east. — Steven Erikson

The wind was against them now, and Piglet's ears streamed behind him like banners as he fought his way along, and it seemed hours before he got them into the shelter of the Hundred Acre Wood and they stood up straight again, to listen, a little nervously, to the roaring of the gale among the treetops.
'Supposing a tree fell down, Pooh, when we were underneath it?'
'Supposing it didn't,' said Pooh after careful thought. — Milne, A. A.

Philosophers have argued without a trend toward order; time would lack meaning. The future would be indistinguishable from the past. Sequences of events would be just so many random scenes from a thousand novels. History would be indistinct, like the mist slowly gathered by treetops in evening. — Alan Lightman

It felt like she was floating on her back in the middle of a vast indigo lake, her ears submerged in the water so that all she could hear was the sound of her own heartbeat. It was terrifying, floating in the middle of a lake by yourself; but there was still the sun, the clounds, the treetops. There was always something to grab on to. — Kathryn Littlewood

Among the hardest hit was Terry the Tramp, who immediately loaded up on LSD and spent the next twelve hours locked in the back of a panel truck, shrieking and crying under the gaze of some god he had almost forgotten, but who came down that night to the level of the treetops and just stared - man, he just looked at me, and I tell you I was scared like a little kid. — Hunter S. Thompson

How quiet the woods are today... not a murmur except that soft wind putting in the treetops! It sounds like surf on a faraway shore. How dear the woods are! You beautiful trees! I love every one of you as a friend! — L.M. Montgomery

I wish to you sunshine, my dear one, my dear one. And treetops for you to soar past. I wish to you innocence, my child, my child. I pray you don't grow up too fast. Never know pain, my dear one, my dear one. Nor hunger nor fear nor sorrow. Never know war, my child, my child. Remember your hope for tomorrow. — Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

The faint pink coating the treetops promised rippling buds, a sure sign of spring hastening in, right on schedule, and the animal world getting ready for its fiesta of courting and mating, dueling and dancing, suckling and grubbing, costume-making and shedding-in short, the fuzzy, fizzy hoopla of life's ramshackle return. — Diane Ackerman

In the cool of evening, in the silent shadowy barn, as we lay watching the sun ducking behind the treetops in the distance, I could hear my heart beating out the rhythm of my love for Frank. And when I rested my head against Frank's warm chest, I could hear his heart beating out the same sweet song for me. — John Inman

Our bird of hope was being denied the altitude it sought, just free enough to fly dangerously close to the reality of the treetops. — Dan Groat

Life hasn't just begun. Art never had a beginning. Always, until the moment of its stopping, it was constantly there. It is infinite. It is here, at this moment, behind me and inside me, and, as if the doors of an Assembly Hall were suddenly flung open, I am immersed in its fresh, headlong omnilocality and omnitemporality, as if an oath of allegiance were to be sworn without delay.
No genuine book has a first page. Like the rustling of a forest, it is begotten God knows where, and it grows and it rolls, arousing the dense wilds of the forest until suddenly, in the very darkest, most stunned and panicked moment, it rolls to its end and begins to speak with all the treetops at once. — Boris Pasternak

Every step of the road was just as she'd dreamt it all the time she'd been away. Every step took her further away from the smoke and the noise and the loneliness and fear of the city she'd left behind. Every step drew her deeper into the hollows of the landscape, the green hills and shining rivers and mist-tangled treetops. — Jon McGregor

One hand planted on the top rail, slick from a recent rain, I swung my legs sideways, up and over. Home free.
Until my bottom foot clipped the post, and I spun as if caught in a crocodile's death roll.
Good news? The spongy forest floor cushioned my fall.
Bad news? Momentum slammed my torso into a tree trunk. Couldn't breathe.
But good news again. I'd rolled under a fat, bushy pine, which, along with the fading twilight, concealed my position. I heard the beast fly overhead in pursuit, taking out a few treetops on its way by.
Yeah, that was my plan all along. Man, I'm good. Except my body. It hurt. — A&E Kirk

After that there was silence for a while, only the sound of the shovel biting into the earth and the hissing splatter of the loose dirt.
They stood him up, his back to the well.
In the dark, desperate sky, just above the scalloped line the treetops made, three stars formed a pleading little constellation. No one looked at them, no one cared. This was the time for death, not the time for mercy.
("The Number's Up") — Cornell Woolrich

I had just got married when I started writing my fourth novel. I'd come back from honeymoon, moved into our first house - a gorgeous little carriage house in London - and made my office on the third floor, overlooking the treetops in North West London. — Jane Green

If only we could always say our truths--if we could name the things that haunt us--maybe they could float up from us like the kind of helium that the birds would sip in the treetops. Then they would make us laugh and laugh. — Rita Zoey Chin

Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us. We need hours of aimless wandering or spates of time sitting on park benches, observing the mysterious world of ants and the canopy of treetops. — Maya Angelou

When the sun is a bike ride away, I will hear it. It will sound like wind in treetops. I will awaken. — Jerry Spinelli

We're in Borneo, can't you tell? We're skimming the treetops now, big leaves are glimmering below us, and there are coffee bushes over there, smell them? and Marie-Laure will indeed smell something, whether because her uncle is passing coffee grounds beneath her nose, or because they really are flying over the coffee trees of Borneo, she does not want to decide. — Anthony Doerr

It was still late summer elsewhere, but here, high in Appalachia, fall was coming; for the last three mornings, she'd been able to see her breath.
The woods, which started twenty feet back from her backdoor like a solid wall, showed only hints of the impending autumn. A few leaves near the treetops had turned, but most were full and green. Visible in the distance, the Widow's Tree towered above the forest. Its leaves were the most stubborn, tenaciously holding on sometimes until spring if the winter was mild. It was a transitional period, when the world changed its cycle and opened a window during which people might also change, if they had the inclination. — Alex Bledsoe

A gentleman, my Lord Father, is such whether he is on earth or on the treetops — Italo Calvino

The wind fights in the treetops; the leaves move in a hundred dialects of green...
p.17 — Fredrik Backman