“If you fell the trees then you destroy human culture as well as the birds of paradise. People depend on the forest and the forest has always depended on us. We are as one.”

“When the ax came into the forest the trees said the handle is one of us.”

“A great book is a homing device
For navigating paradise.

A good book somehow makes you care
About the comfort of a chair.

A bad book owes to many trees
A forest of apologies.”

“Trees, for example, carry the memory of rainfall. In their rings we read ancient weather—storms, sunlight, and temperatures, the growing seasons of centuries. A forest shares a history, which each tree remembers even after it has been felled.”

“I was once walking through the forest alone. A tree fell right in front of me, and I didn't hear a thing.”

“A healthy forest, untouched by forestry technology, is made up of a strange mixture of vegetation. Alongside well-defined areas of noble trees, conditions of apparent chaos can be found, which can best be described as irregular confusion. People who are not aware of the importance of the balance in Nature, of which the forest is a part, want to clear areas of everything they do not consider to be useful. A great deal of sensitive concern and observation is necessary to begin to understand why Nature depends on an apparently chaotic disorder.”

“What is a dream? You ask too much of me: it is a woman cutting down a tree. What are forests for? For making the matches one gives children to play with. Is the fire in the forest, then? The fire is in the forest. What do plants feed on? On mystery. What day is it today? Shit..”

“Eyes on the forest, not on the trees.”

“Certain parts of the forest [the forest Bas Bréau, near Barbizon ] are truly wonderful. We can't even imagine such oak trees in Montpellier.”

“A forest bird never wants a cage.”