“No matter how far back you cut a willow tree, it will never really die.”

Source: Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia

Source: Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia

Source: Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman: 24 Stories

Source: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Bodhi Tree lecture (1999)
Context: The word witch is related to the root of the word "willow," a very flexible tree. Since ancient times witches have been known as those who can bend or shape fate. We twist the energies. The idea of witch became synonymous with wise woman, and with others who were herbalists and healers and keepers of the old traditions after the advent of Christianity. We were the ones who really knew the land and knew what grew there, and how to use it.

Source: The Witch of Blackbird Pond

Source: After the Quake

A Grief Observed (1961)
Context: You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you. It is easy to you believe a rope to be strong and sound as long as you are merely using it to cord a box. But suppose that you had to hang by that rope over a precipice. Wouldn't you then first discover how much you really trusted it? … Only a real risk tests the reality of a belief.