“There was a sharp crack from somewhere on the mountain. Then another. It's just a tree falling, he said. It's okay. The boy was looking at the dead roadside trees. It's okay, the man said. All the trees in the world are going to fall sooner or later. But not on us.”

“If you could really see that tree over there," Merlin said, "you would be so astounded that you'd fall over.""Really? But why?" asked Arthur. "It's just a tree.""No," Merlin said, "It's just a tree in your mind. To another mind it is an expression of infinite spirit and beauty. In God's mind it is a dear child, sweeter than anything you can imagine.”

“Okay, is anyone else worried that some of the fruit didn't fall far enough away from the tree?”

“Okay. Sometimes the truth just lands at your feet in a lump, like a big, dead bird falling out of the sky. No warning...I stand there under the branches of the Honesty Tree. More dead birds of truth fall down all around me.”

“He removed several pages of death certificates, which were picked up by another breeze and sent into the trees. Some would fall with the leaves that September. Some would fall with the trees generations later.”

“Oh, why does compassion weaken us?'It doesn't, really ... Somewhere where it all balances out - don't the philosophers have a name for it, the perfect place, the place where the answers live? - if we could go there, you could see it doesn't. It only looks, a little bit, like it does, from here, like an ant at the foot of an oak tree. He doesn't have a clue that it's a tree; it's the beginning of the wall round the world, to him.”