“Dictionopolis is the place where all the words in the world come from. They're grown right here in our orchards.""I didn't know that words grew on trees," said Milo timidly."Where did you think they grew?" shouted the earl irritably. A small crowd began to gather to see the little boy who didn't know that letters grew on trees."I didn't know they grew at all," admitted Milo even more timidly. Several people shook their heads sadly."Well, money doesn't grow on trees, does it?" demanded the count."I've heard not," said Milo."Then something must. Why not words?" exclaimed the undersecretary triumphantly. The crowd cheered his display of logic and continued about its business.”

“For instance," said the boy again, "if Christmas trees were people and people were Christmas trees, we'd all be chopped down, put up in the living room, and covered in tinsel, while the trees opened our presents.""What does that have to do with it?" asked Milo."Nothing at all," he answered, "but it's an interesting possibility, don't you think?”

“An oak tree and a rosebush grew,Young and green together,Talking the talk of growing things-Wind and water and weather.And while the rosebush sweetly bloomedThe oak tree grew so highThat now it spoke of newer things-Eagles, mountain peaks and sky."I guess you think you're pretty great,"The rose was heard to cry,Screaming as loud as it possibly couldTo the treetop in the sky."And now you have no time for flower talk,Now that you've grown so tall.""It's not so much that I've grown," said the tree,"It's just that you've stayed so small.”

“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.”

“And now," he continued, speaking to Milo, "where were you on the night of July 27?" "What does that have to do with it?" asked Milo."It's my birthday, that's what," said the policeman as he entered "Forgot my birthday" in his little book. "Boys always forget other people's birthdays.”

“I had never seen so much hair on a man. It covered all of his face and grew way down to his chest, maybe lower, but he didn't have hair where it counted, on top of his head.”