Quotes About Nature

Penstemon, overhearing

But I remember talking with Mr. Garrick once in London, and his reference to the playwright as a little god who directs the actions of his creations, exerting absolute control upon them. Mrs. Cowley argued with this, saying that it is delusion to assume that the creator controls his creations and that an attempt to exert such control while ignoring the true nature of those creations is doomed to failure.

At first he had thought the loneliness would kill him, but once he had learned it would not, he came to value the solitude of the mountainside.

It's a poem, or part of one. Daddy always used to say it, when he'd come home and find Mama puttering in her garden—he said she'd live out there if she could. He used to joke that she—that she'd leave us someday, and go find a place where she could live by herself, with nothing but her plants.

Folk will tell ye that owls havena got an arsehole, so they canna pass the things they eat—like mice, aye? So the bones and the hairs and such are all made up into a ball, and the owl vomits them out, not bein' able to get rid of them out the other end.

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made: Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee. And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

The mountains had their own time, and a wise man didn't hurry them.

rose from the plain before them, peaceful and solid—very solid—in the autumn sun. The day was warm and beautiful, and the air was alive with the rich, earthy smells of the river and forest. He'd never seen such a forest. The trees that edged the plain and grew all along the banks of the St. Lawrence grew impenetrably thick, now blazing with gold and crimson. Seen against the darkness of the water and the impossible deep blue of the vast October sky, the whole

the wispy clouds of the morning had been knitting themselves up into a low sky the color of dirty wool

Live with Highlanders long enough, and every damn rock and tree meant something! Perhaps

THE PIGEONS ON the roof of the boardinghouse made a purling noise, like the sea coming in on a pebbled shore, rolling tiny rounded rocks in the surf.

Christ," he said in an undertone, bending down so I could hear him. "And she's been a woman less than a full day, too! Have ye been givin' her lessons, Sassenach, or are women just born wi' it?" "Natural talent, I expect

Well, he is human. And perhaps he's not a monster yet.

I had turned the earth in my garden the day before, planting the winter seeds to sleep and swell, to dream their buried birth.

The wind stirred the drying leaves of wild grapevines with a papery rustle behind me, and in the distance a murder of crows passed, squabbling in shrill cries.

Juniper, Pennyroyal, Lady's-vetch, … and the squat

But as spring blooms, the birds grow drunk with love and the bushes riot with their songs.

I SLEPT THE sleep of the gardener, physical exhaustion leavened by tranquility

like he wouldn't give the road to a bear.

to meet her fate beneath the rowan trees in the hills near

crepuscle, the mysterious half-light that comes at both ends of the day, when the small secret things come out to feed. There

tent for a day and a night. The tent shook and heaved, and voices

The company of plants is always soothing, and after the incessant—well, you couldn't call it sociability, exactly, but at least the incessant presence of people requiring to be conversed with, directed, hectored, scolded, conferred with, persuaded, lied to—that I had experienced over the last few days

Who makes a garden works with God.