“The awesome silence of the place crept up on her. The spruce and pines, all still laden with snow, spread their limbs in a frozen ballet, breathing a ghostly incense from dark, arid chapels sheltered by their branches.”

“Ree followed a path made by prey uphill through scrub, across a bald knob and downhill into a section of pine trees and pine scent and that pious shade and silence pines create. Pine trees in low limbs spread over fresh snow made a stronger vault for the spirit than pews and pulpits ever could.”

“Pine trees with low limbs spread over fresh snow made a stronger vault for the spirit than pews and pulpits ever could.”

“The Buddha achieved enlightenment as he sat under the spreading limbs of the Bodhi tree, breathing in and out in silence, as does a tree.”

“The nurses did their best to spruce up the antiseptic corridors but the smell of pine boughs was overpowered by Pine Sol and no one paused beneath the mistletoe on the contagious ward.”

“He got down easily by dropping uncontrollably from branch to branch until he landed on his head in a pile of pine needles, where he lay gasping for breath and wishing he'd been a better person.”