Ned Hayes Books & Quotes

“For a moment I looked at Ilsa's face, and in that moment, I could understand why some people like to look at each other's faces. There is something in a person's eyes that you cannot see anywhere else in the world. Something haunting and unsettling.”

Soul Faces Emotion Eyes

Book:The Eagle Tree

Source: The Eagle Tree

“I must learn to be as the bear in a cage with the stick that pokes it always, through the bars. The bear acts as if the stick is made of air, and takes no notice of it, even when it is sharpened and draws blood. I must do the same.”

Inner Peace Inner Strength Medieval

Book:Sinful Folk

Source: Sinful Folk

“The light filtered through the trees, rays of sunlight splitting around the vast trunks, the branches above us fluttering in a faint wind, and the green needles of Douglas Firs shimmering silver underneath in the breeze.”

Climate Change Autism Autistic Autism Spectrum Eagletree

Book:The Eagle Tree

Source: The Eagle Tree

“I reached down to feel the soil, and I touched the outreaching roots of the trees that bore horizontally and vertically hundreds of feet through the forest. I stroked the earth with my palm, and I could almost feel that invisible network of capillary roots that sucks moisture and nutrients out of every inch of the soil I was standing on. I breathed in and out. I was part of the forest. I was alive.”

Autism Trees Autistic Botany Eagletree Northwest

Book:The Eagle Tree

Source: The Eagle Tree

“A rising tower of wood and needles and branches and great slabs of bark that has grown for hundreds of years. An impossible castle made from air and sunlight, fixed in place by the power of photosynthesis and chlorophyll. Magic. With lights.”

Climate Change Autism Trees Autistic Eagletree

Book:The Eagle Tree

Source: The Eagle Tree

“Many people think trees grow so big from soil and water, but this is not true. Trees get their mass from the air. They gobble up airborne carbon dioxide and perform an act of chemical fission by using the energy from sunshine... Essentially, trees are made of air and sunshine.”

Climate Change Autism Trees Autistic Eagletree

Book:The Eagle Tree

Source: The Eagle Tree

“This tree was a vast cylinder of wood. It filled the sky. The limbs reached out above me, a great canopy sheltering the rest of the trees, as if they were its children.”

Climate Change Autism Trees Autistic Eagletree

Book:The Eagle Tree

Source: The Eagle Tree

“My arms sometimes move on their own in big flapping motions, as if I might take off, and my hands spin like a hummingbird’s wings.”

Climate Change Autism Trees Autistic Eagletree

Book:The Eagle Tree

Source: The Eagle Tree

“The trees reach up above me toward the sky, stretching out their great limbs in an intricate pattern that reminds me of the pattern of light... the pattern shifting back and forth as I climb.”

Climate Change Autism Trees Autistic Eagletree Nedhayes

Book:The Eagle Tree

Source: The Eagle Tree

“The branches are a storm around me, and I fall into a deep well of green. The needles and limbs rush past. It is a whirling motion of green and brown branches.”

Climate Change Autism Trees Autistic Eagletree

Book:The Eagle Tree

Source: The Eagle Tree

“The forest was all around me now... The ground soft and warm with light and growth... I could almost hear the ceaseless excavations of the flowing bloodstream underneath the earth skin of this vast organism. I touched the outreaching roots of the trees... I could feel that nearly invisible network of capillary roots... I breathed in and out. I was part of the forest. I was alive.”

Climate Change Autism Trees Autistic Eagletree

Book:The Eagle Tree

Source: The Eagle Tree

“I felt the bark of the trees on either side of me as I walked. I could reach out with my fingertips and touch their bark as I passed. The skin of the trees was warm in the sunlight, and rough, and I imagined that each tree contained a soul.”

Climate Change Autism Autistic Eagletree Trees Matter

Book:The Eagle Tree

Source: The Eagle Tree

“I fall for centuries of life. First sunlight touches this hillside; and buried inside the earth, a seed stirs, turning slowly in the deep soil like a tadpole turning itself in a dank pool.”

Climate Change Autism Trees Autistic Eagletree

Book:The Eagle Tree

Source: The Eagle Tree

“I watched water dripping off the ferns and the needles of the Western Red Cedar next door. I watched it running in runnels down the bark of the Cherry tree, and I looked at the small droplets of misty water that were accumulating on the broad leaves of the Bigleaf Maple.I touched one of the accumulated droplets, and instantly it was gone.”

Climate Change Autism Trees Autistic Eagletree

Book:The Eagle Tree

Source: The Eagle Tree

“The wind is blowing hard around me, the sound is rising in my chest again, and I feel I can fly.And then the branch has shifted under my feet, the deep furrows of the bark have left my back, and I have no time to spread my arms. I am not flying. I am falling.”

Climate Change Autism Trees Autistic Eagletree

Book:The Eagle Tree

Source: The Eagle Tree

“I felt the bark of the trees on either side of me as I walked. It was very soothing. Here in the LBA Woods, the trees grew very close together and when I did not walk on the path, I would reach out with my fingertips and touch their bark as I passed. The skin of the trees was warm in the sunlight, and rough, and I imagined that each tree contained a soul. Like an Ent. I knew this idea was not a true thing, but still I felt good that the trees were here.”

Climate Change Autism Autistic Botany Eagletree

Book:The Eagle Tree

Source: The Eagle Tree

“I saw the Eagle Tree for the first time on the third Monday of the month of March, which I guess could be considered auspicious if I believed in magic or superstition or religion...”

Climate Change Autism Trees Autistic Eagletree

Book:The Eagle Tree

Source: The Eagle Tree

“My fingers are callused from gripping tree limbs, and my nails are short and grubby with bark. They are like the talons of a bird that lives only in trees.”

Climate Change Autism Autistic Eagletree

Book:The Eagle Tree

Source: The Eagle Tree

“In the end, I listen to my fear. It keeps me awake, resounding through the frantic beating in my breast. It is there in the dry terror in my throat, in the pricking of the rats’ nervous feet in the darkness. Christian has not come home all the night long. I know, for I have lain in this darkness for hours now with my eyes stretched wide, yearning for my son’s return.”

Women History Historical Medieval Jewish Strong Woman Strong Female Characters Mystery Fiction Strong Heroine Sinfulfolk

Book:Sinful Folk

Source: Sinful Folk

“Rooks have clustered on either side of the long road. It is as if they line a grand parade route for our passage. Their black feathers are stark as soot against the white road and the snow. They stab at the ground with their strange bare bills and gray unfeathered faces. The birds are like rough-edged black stones on a string around this stripped cold neck of road. The old books tell us rooks bring the virtuous dead to heaven’s gate.”

Historical Historical Fiction Medieval Historical Fiction Mystery

Book:Sinful Folk

Source: Sinful Folk

“It was very damp and misty–which some people from outside the Pacific Northwest consider to be rain, but I do not. This is typical weather for the Pacific Northwest and Olympia. It is often wet in Olympia, but we have an average of only 49.95 inches a year of actual precipitation. That’s less than in Denver. In Olympia, the air is damp, and water collects and drips from everywhere. We do not get big downpours, but we get damp and spongy. I don’t care. It helps the trees grow, and I climb the trees.”

Nature Rain Weather Forest Washington Olympia Pnw

Book:The Eagle Tree

Source: The Eagle Tree

“When I fell, every future move exploded apart in my mind, a deck of cards thrown in the air.”

Trees Falling Out Of Control

Book:The Eagle Tree

Source: The Eagle Tree

“There is an ocean of light around us. We are surrounded by it. We swim in it. We move through it every day. But I am the only one who seems to have my eyes open. I am the only one who can see it. Sometimes, this is very lonely.”

Light Lonely

Book:The Eagle Tree

Source: The Eagle Tree

Ned Hayes Books

The Eagle Tree

Sinful Folk

Related Quotes