“Under the olive trees, from the ground
Grows this flower, which is a wound.”

“A tree growing out of the ground is as wonderful today as it ever was. It does not need to adopt new and startling methods.”

“The rain, the rain, the rain. You can't even hear it outside the window but still it's a sad thing. Rain, the grade school teachers say, makes the trees and flowers grow, but we're not trees and flower, and so many grade school teachers are single.”

“If melodiously piping flutes sprang from the olive, would you doubt that a knowledge of flute-playing resided in the olive? And what if plane trees bore harps which gave forth rhythmical sounds? Clearly you would think in the same way that the art of music was possessed by plane trees. Why, then, seeing that the universe gives birth to beings that are animate and wise, should it not be considered animate and wise itself?”

“The trouble about Europe is what I call the Olive Line, the line below which people grow olives. North of the Olive Line people pay their taxes and spend public money very cautiously. South of it they fail to pay their taxes at all, but spend a lot of public money.”

“There was a gulmohar tree in the lane, the flaming orange flowers erupting from within, and banyan trees, private and removed as ancient pilgrims.”

“If the Olive Trees knew the hands that planted them, Their Oil would become Tears.”

“So let me fly please lead me and I'll follow you
Above the clouds beyond the stormy sea
I long to share a world of sweet contentment there
In that bright land where grows the olive tree.”

“Consider. One bullet in ten thousand kills a man.
Ask. Was so much expenditure justified
On the death of one so young and so silly
Lying under the olive tree, O world, O death?”

“So the stimulus didn't just waste your money; it planted the seeds from which the poisonous tree of death panels will grow.”