“These giants of the forest are something to behold. Some have been growing for a thousand years, and each tree contains its own story of the centuries’ long struggle for survival. Looking at the annular rings of the wood, you can tell what seasons they have been through. In some drought years they almost perished, as growth is barely perceptible. In others, the growth was far greater.”
“Nearby another one arose and there was a pop. Little bubbles of air snapped as these voiceless animals of the earth came to the surface. That got me to smiling. I was glad to know this about earthworms. I don’t know why but this seemed like one of the nicest things I had learned in the woods - that earthworms, lowly, confined to the darkness of the earth, could make just a little stir in the world”
“There were maples and oaks to the west, and a hemlock forest to the right that pulled me right across the sweet grasses, into it. Never, never have I seen such trees. They were giants--old, old giants. They must have begun when the world began.”
“Compared with most other places in the developed world, America is still to a remarkable extent a land of forests. One-third o the landscape of the lower forty-eight states is covered in trees. ”
“Woods are not like other spaces... They make you feel small.. like a small child lost in a crowd of strange legs. Stand in a desert or prairie and you know you are in a big space. Stand in a woods and you only sense it. They are a vast featureless nowhere. And they are alive.”
“The short cut led right to where Harold thought a forest ought to be. He didn’t want to get lost in the woods. So he made a very small forest, with just one small tree in it.”
“Babar is not quite happy, for he misses playing in the great forest with his little cousins and his friends, the monkeys. He often stands at the window, thinking sadly of his childhood, and cries when he remembers his mother.”
“Summer is over. The fields and forests are gone, and now there are just streets and cars everywhere. When Rosa and her aunt go out for a walk, Rosa sits down on the sidewalk. Or she lies down and closes her eyes. ”
“The whole forest was peopled with frightful sounds—the creaking of the trees, the howling of wild beasts, and the yell of Indians; while sometimes the wind tolled like a distant church bell, and sometimes gave a broad roar around the traveler, as if all Nature were laughing him to scorn. But he was himself the chief horror of the scene, and shrank not from its other horrors.”
“As the wedding party moved through the forest, brightly plumed birds darted about in the cool green shadows beneath the trees. Though anxious about her sister, Nyasha was soon filled with excitement about all there was to see.”
“A crow saw the rabbit running for her life. He flew into the forest crying kaa, kaa, kaa! It was his duty to spread the alarm in case of danger. A monkey heard the crow. He was sure that some dangerous beast was prowling near.”
“Now it was Mother Owl who woke the sun each day so that the dawn could come. But this time, when she should have hooted for the sun, she did not do it. The night grew longer and longer. The animals of the forest knew it was lasting much too long. They feared that the sun would never come back.”
“They walked the whole day over the meadows, fields, and stony places; and when it rained the little sister said: ‘Heaven and our hearts are weeping together.’ In the evening they came to a large forest, and they were so weary with sorrow and hunger and the long walk, that they lay down in the hollow tree and fell asleep.”
″ ‘I’ll tell you what, husband,’ answered the woman, ‘early-to-morrow morning we will take the children out into the forest to where it is the thickest; there we will light a fire for them, and give each of them one more piece of bread, and then we will go to our work and leave them alone. They will not find the way home again, and we shall be rid of them.’ ”
“Dear children, I have to go into the forest, be on your guard against the wolf; if he comes in, he will devour you all - skin, hair, and everything, The wretch often disguises himself, but you will know him at once by his rough voice and black feet.”
‘The best thing that I can do, is to decide upon taking some straight line, and continue on it: I must get out of the forest at last, even if I walk right across it.”
“The truth is, the folks’ fancy that such and such things cannot be, simply because they have not seen them, is worth no more than a savage’s fancy that there cannot be such a thing as a locomotive, because he never saw one running wild in the forest. Wise men know that their business is to examine what is, and not to settle what is not.”
“Jenny had never been in a forest, but strangely enough she was not frightened. The odd smells oozing from the earth and trees delighted her. The farther she went, the more the forest seemed like something that had happened to her long ago.”
“What she wished most to be, much more than the rest,
Was a cabin she’d seen on her trips through the west.
A little log shack half-covered with vines
Perched on a slope in a forest of pines.”
“The most fun of all for Bruce was rock tumbling. There were lots of rocks in Forevergreen Forest - great jumbles of them. With a swipe of a paw the bear sent them tumbling down the steep slopes three and four at a time. The tumbling rocks shattered logs and flattened the bushes and brush, leaving no place for the rabbits and quail to hide. So they took off in a panic to go leaping and dodging and flying pell-mell in every direction.”
“Little bears have short memories and in a few days Bruce forgot all about ever being a giant of a bear. For all he knew Roxy’s flower garden was a beautiful leafy green forest with plenty of room to roam.”
“It wasn’t a roar Zafira heard. Something else beckoned from the darkness, enticing her. Growing with her every visit. It was as if a thread of her heart had snagged in the forest and was trying to reel her back in.”