“The tree is more than first a seed, then a stem, then a living trunk, and then dead timber. The tree is a slow, enduring force straining to win the sky.”

“At that time, I often thought that if I had had to live in the trunk of a dead tree, with nothing to do but look up at the sky flowing overhead, little by little I would have gotten used to it.”

“Good Timber by Douglas MallochThe tree that never had to fightFor sun and sky and air and light,But stood out in the open plainAnd always got its share of rain,Never became a forest kingBut lived and died a scrubby thing.The man who never had to toilTo gain and farm his patch of soil,Who never had to win his shareOf sun and sky and light and air,Never became a manly manBut lived and died as he began.Good timber does not grow with ease:The stronger wind, the stronger trees;The further sky, the greater length;The more the storm, the more the strength.By sun and cold, by rain and snow,In trees and men good timbers grow.Where thickest lies the forest growth,We find the patriarchs of both.And they hold counsel with the starsWhose broken branches show the scarsOf many winds and much of strife.This is the common law of life.”

“The tree that never had to fightfor sun and sky and air and lightbut stood out in the open plainand always got it share of rain,never became a forest kingbut lived and died a scrubby thing.Good timber does not grow with ease.The stronger wind, the stronger trees. ”

“The snow fell straight and slow, adding another layer to the drifts and covering roads, trees, bushes, and bodies, the living and the dead as one beneath its veil.”

“No matter where its seed fell, it made a tree which struggled to reach the sky. It grew in boarded-up lots and out of neglected rubbish heaps, and it was the only tree that grew out of cement. It grew lushly, but only in the tenements districts.... That was the kind of tree it was. It liked poor people.”