“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”

“Let me tell you something. A man ain’t a goddamn ax. Chopping, hacking, busting every goddamn minute of the day. Things get to him. Things he can’t chop down because they’re inside.”

“I hope when he dies, he does become a tree. I hope he's in the middle of the wilderness and he's doing his tree thing. Whatever it is trees do. I know they do a lot of work with breezes. And wouldn't it be fantastic if while he was out there just enjoying his treeness, through the woods, a huge sweaty guy with an ax comes long? Sees him… [tree-chopping motions]. Chops him down, smash! Put a chain around him, drag him through the mud and the muck, throw him into a sawmill and grind him up. [Nuzzsaw noise] Then you pound him down into paper, and once he's paper, you print the Bible on him.”

“So if you are the big tree, we are the small axe. Ready to cut you down, to cut you down.”

“A book should be an axe to chop open the frozen sea inside us.”

“The axe is laid to the root of the tree. … I will hew it down. And as I live, I will plague your Honor, Pomp, Greatness, Superfluity, and confound it into parity, equality, community.”

“Isn't it odd how parents grieve if their child spends six hours a day on the 'Net, but are delighted if those same hours are spent reading books?”

“So here the twins were laid low at Aeneas' hands,
down they crashed like lofty pine trees axed.”

“I've been on the computer a lot. They say that's the cause of the soreness in my elbow. I'll be in control. I spent four hours. Now, I'll have to spend one hour and take it easy.”

“Instead of chopping yourself down to fit the world, chop the world down to fit yourself.”