112 quotes found
“I reached down to feel the soil, and I touched the outreaching roots of the trees that bore horizontally and vertically hundreds of feet through the forest. I stroked the earth with my palm, and I ...”
“The wind is blowing hard around me, the sound is rising in my chest again, and I feel I can fly.And then the branch has shifted under my feet, the deep furrows of the bark have left my back, and I ...”
“I watched water dripping off the ferns and the needles of the Western Red Cedar next door. I watched it running in runnels down the bark of the Cherry tree, and I looked at the small droplets of mi...”
“Many people think trees grow so big from soil and water, but this is not true. Trees get their mass from the air. They gobble up airborne carbon dioxide and perform an act of chemical fission by us...”
“I fall for centuries of life. First sunlight touches this hillside; and buried inside the earth, a seed stirs, turning slowly in the deep soil like a tadpole turning itself in a dank pool.”
“A rising tower of wood and needles and branches and great slabs of bark that has grown for hundreds of years. An impossible castle made from air and sunlight, fixed in place by the power of photosy...”
“The forest was all around me now... The ground soft and warm with light and growth... I could almost hear the ceaseless excavations of the flowing bloodstream underneath the earth skin of this vast...”
“The branches are a storm around me, and I fall into a deep well of green. The needles and limbs rush past. It is a whirling motion of green and brown branches.”
“I saw the Eagle Tree for the first time on the third Monday of the month of March, which I guess could be considered auspicious if I believed in magic or superstition or religion...”
“This tree was a vast cylinder of wood. It filled the sky. The limbs reached out above me, a great canopy sheltering the rest of the trees, as if they were its children.”
“My arms sometimes move on their own in big flapping motions, as if I might take off, and my hands spin like a hummingbirds wings.”
“The trees reach up above me toward the sky, stretching out their great limbs in an intricate pattern that reminds me of the pattern of light... the pattern shifting back and forth as I climb.”
“Half the time he seems autistic, the rest of the time he's like a lizard jacked full of lithium and speed. These things do not promote love in most of us.”
“Could some of the challenging behaviours that often partner autism begin as experiements on measuring human reactions? Are these children exploring boundaries - seeing what makes the toy squeak or ...”
“We know that children with autism like order, that they are often very visual and that they can be quite literal. They deserve beautiful resources and symbols that make sense. If a picture does not...”
“But had Minkowski and Einstein not recognized it long before us, our schizophrenic children would have taught us that space-time is a unity that precedes any separate understanding of either catego...”
“I liked holding David’s hand, though. That part-the snow dampening my face, letting my tears mix without anyone seeing, his fingers snug in mine-that was nice. His hand was heavier than I would hav...”
“You look beautiful even when you cry. I mean, not that you don’t look beautiful when you’re happy. Of course, you’re beautiful all the time. But out there in the snow, you were stunning.”
“I try to think of other things. David’s hand in mine. That was nice. Innocent, friendly hand-holding. I think of his tape measure. And his haircut. I think about what it might be like to kiss him. ...”
“we match,” I say, and as soon as the words are out I already know that tomorrow will come and I will remember this moment and wince. We match?? And so, even through this drunken haze, I feel relief...”
