“A spaniel, a woman, and a walnut tree, the more they're beaten the better they be.”

“The nutcracker sits under the holiday tree, a guardian of childhood stories. Feed him walnuts and he will crack open a tale...”

“A thing which I regret, and which I will try to remedy some time, is that I have never in my life planted a walnut. Nobody does plant them nowadays—when you see a walnut it is almost invariably an old tree. If you plant a walnut you are planting it for your grandchildren, and who cares a damn for his grandchildren?”

“My toaster could have a soul,and the walnut grove to the east of my house could be just a bunch of trees or could be made from the atoms of Elvis or Mussolini.Why not?”

“What I think," Chatty says, "is that if a man loves a woman more than a woman loves a man, then they're even.”

“A tree weeps when cut down, a dog howls when beaten, but a man matures when offended.”