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Ferns Quotes

Browse 47 quotes about Ferns.

Ferns Quotes

“Sadie scanned the wild tangle of greenery surrounding them. Ferns were striving towards the light, spiraled stems uncoiling into fronds. The sweet scent of honeysuckle mingled with the earthiness of recent rain. Summer rain. She'd always loved that smell, even more so when Bertie told her it was caused by a type of bacteria. It proved that good things could come from bad if the right conditions were applied. Sadie had a vested interest in believing that was true.”

Natures BeautyFernsSummer RainHoneysuckleSadie Sparrow
Book:The Lake House
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“I built a stone sittin' ledge around the natural spring, which I'm calling the gazing pool because it's mesmerizing. The bees love it, too. I often see them flying near it, and sometimes, and I know this sounds strange, they seem to take on a golden shimmer when they're near the water. I planted some ferns at the pool, too, because some believe ferns represent magic, and it sure feels magical out there to me.”

GardenPoolBeesMagical RealismGazingShimmerFernsDiary Entry
Book:In the Middle of Hickory Lane
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“Between the disappearance of the river and its re-emegence is like a desert river valley, clearly carved by water, with rounded stones in the bottom and steep sides, but no water running. Yet here there are elm trees, one of which is huge, with a magnificent trunk festooned with mosses, lichens, polypody ferns and fungi, a rich tapestry of rainforest life. Uniquely, it grows horizontally out of the rock, many metres up the sheer wall of the ravine, a completely implausible place for a tree to grow, hanging in complete defiance of the laws of physics. I stand beneath it, neck craned in awe, looking up into the lush green profusion of its living community. It is winter, so all this greenery isn't the tree's own leaves, but photosynthesising life using it as a climbing frame. Paradoxically, in this dry river valley, everything about its grand gathering of epiphytes declares it to be a rainforest tree. It is a perfect synbol of survival against the odds.”

FernsElmLichensMossesAssyntAtlantic RainforestEpiphytes
Book:The Lost Elms: A Love Letter to Our Vanished Trees – and the Fight to Save Them
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“Only spread a fern-frond over a man's head and worldly cares are cast out, and freedom and beauty and peace come in.”

MenCareNatureCastsSpreadWorldlyCalmnessCalmingNaturalistFernsWorldly Desires
Book:JOHN MUIR Ultimate Collection: Travel Memoirs, Wilderness Essays, Environmental Studies & Letters (Illustrated): Picturesque California, The Treasures of the Yosemite, Our National Parks, Steep Trails, Travels in Alaska, A Thousand-mile Walk to the Gulf, Save the Redwoods, The Cruise of the Corwin and more
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“As the brain of man is the speck of dust in the universe that thinks, so the leaves—the fern and the needled pine and the latticed frond and the seaweed ribbon—perceive the light in a fundamental and constructive sense. … Their leaves see the light, as my eyes can never do. … They impound its stellar energy, and with that force they make life out of the elements.”

ThinkingMenLightEyeUniverseEnergyForceBrainElementsFundamentalsDustPerceiveConstructiveRibbonsSpecksSeaweedStellarFerns
Author:Donald C. Peattie
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“News flash, Fern Taylor!" Ambrose barked, slamming his hand against the dashboard, making Fern jump. "Everything has changed! You are beautiful, I am hideous, you don't need me anymore, but I sure as hell need you!""You act like beauty is the only thing that makes us worthy of love," Fern snapped. "I didn't just l-love you because you were beautiful!" She'd said the L word, right out loud, though she'd tripped over it.”

NeedsSaidHandsBeautifulHellLove YouChangedNewsWorthyLoudOver ItFlashNeed YouHideousThings Have ChangedYou Are BeautifulWorthy Of LoveFernsDashboards
Author:Amy Harmon
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“Burn, burn tree and fern! Shrivel and scorch! A fizzling torch To light the night for our delight, Ya hey! Bake and toast ‘em, fry and roast ‘em! till beards blaze, and eyes glaze; till hair smells and skins crack, fat melts, and bones black in cinders lie beneath the sky! So dwarves shall die, and light the night for our delight, Ya hey! Ya-harri-hey! Ya hoy!”

LightEyeLyingNightDiesBlackTreeSkyHairSkinsDelightBonesSmellFatsHeyEmsCracksBeardToastsTorchesDwarvesFerns
Book:The Hobbit
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“I'm sure the red fern has grown and has completely covered the two little mounds. I know it is still there, hiding its secret beneath those long, red leaves, but it wouldn't be hidden from me for part of my life is buried there, too. Yes, I know it is still there, for in my heart I believe the legend of the sacred red fern.”

KnowsBelieveHeartLittlesLongStillsTwoLife IsI BelieveSecretMy HeartRedSacredCoveredHidingBuriedLegendsFernsRed Leaves
Author:Wilson Rawls
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“I had heard the old Indian legend about the red fern. How a little Indian boy and girl were lost in a blizzard and had frozen to death. In the spring, when they were found, a beautiful red fern had grown up between their two bodies. The story went on to say that only an angel could plant the seeds of a red fern, and that they never died; where one grew, that spot was sacred.”

LittlesTwoStoriesBodyBeautifulGirlFoundLostBoysHeardGrewSpringAngelRedDiedSacredPlantSeedsSpotsIndianLegendsFrozenBoy And GirlBlizzardFerns
Author:Wilson Rawls
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“A tree is alive, and thus it is always more than you can see. Roots to leaves, yes-those you can, in part, see. But it is more-it is the lichens and moss and ferns that grow on its bark, the life too small to see that lives among its roots, a community we know of, but do not think on. It is every fly and bee and beetle that uses it for shelter or food, every bird that nests in its branches. Every one an individual, and yet every one part of the tree, and the tree part of every one.”

ThinkingKnowsUseIndividualGrowsCommunityEnvironmentAliveTreeBirdRootsBranchesBeesShelterNestsBarkMossBeetlesFernsInterbeing
Author:Elizabeth Moon
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“Of course, when we got home, we found that Dagda had peed on my down comforter. He had also eaten part of Mom's maidenhair fern and barfed it up on the carpet. Then he had apparently worked himself into a frenzy sharpening his ting by amazingly effective claws on the armrest of my dad's favorite chair. Now he was asleep on a pillow, curled up like a fuzzy little snail. "God, he's so cute," I said, shaking my head.”

LittlesSaidHomeCoursesFoundMomDadMy DadCuteChairsCarpetShakingPillowClawsFrenzySnailFuzzyComforterSharpeningFernsShaking My Head
Book:Blood Witch: Book Three
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“So, if people didn’t settle down to take up farming, why then did they embark on this entirely new way of living? We have no idea – or actually, we have lots of ideas, but we don’t know if any of them are right. According to Felipe Fernández-Armesto, at least thirty-eight theories have been put forward to explain why people took to living in communities: that they were driven to it by climatic change, or by a wish to stay near their dead, or by a powerful desire to brew and drink beer, which could only be indulged by staying in one place.”

PeopleIfsKnowsWayHas BeensIdeasDesireWishCommunityPowerfulTheoryDrinkEightDrivenBeerNo IdeaSettlingThirtyStayingNew WaysFarmingSettling DownFernsThirty Eight
Author:Bill Bryson
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“Time overlaps itself. A breath breathed from a passing breeze is not the whole wind, neither is it just the last of what has passed and the first of what will come, but is more--let me see--more like a single point plucked on a single strand of a vast spider web of winds, setting the whole scene atingle. That way; it overlaps ... as prehistoric ferns grow from bathtub planters.”

WayFirstsWholeLastsTimeGrowsWindSceneLet MeBreathsSettingPassingPassingsSettingsBreezeSpidersStrandsBathtubsPrehistoricFernsSpider WebPlanters
Book:Sometimes a Great Notion
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“It was to Hofmeister, working as a young man, an amateur and enthusiast, in the early morning hours of summer months, before business, at Leipzig in the years before 1851, that the vision first appeared of a common type of Life-Cycle, running through Mosses and Ferns to Gymnosperms and Flowering Plants, linking the whole series in one scheme of reproduction and life-history.”

MenYearsFirstsWholeRunningYoungHoursCommonVisionMorningFlowerTypeMonthsSummerPlantSeriesYoung ManCyclesSchemesReproductionMossFloweringEarly MorningFernsLeipzig
Book:Gossypium in Pre-Linnaean Literature
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“In our everyday garden grow the rosemary, juniper, ferns and plane trees, perfectly tangible and visible. For these plants that have an illusory relationship with us, which in no way alters their existentiality, we are merely an event, an accident, and our presence, which seems so solid, laden with gravity, is to them no more than a momentary void in motion through the air. Reality is a quality that belongs to them, and we can exercise no rights over it.”

WayRealitySeemsSpiritualityGrowsQualityRightsAirTreeEventsExerciseGardenPlantEverydayAccidentsPlanesVisibleOver ItVoidGravityGardeningTangibleMomentaryIllusoryFernsRosemary
Book:Parallel botany
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“When we walk slowly, the world can fully appear. Not only are the creatures not frightened away by our haste or aggression, but the fine detail of fern and flower, or devastation and disruption, becomes visible. Many of us hurry along because we do not want to see what is really going on in and around us. We are afraid to let our senses touch the body of suffering or the body of beauty”

WorldWantBodySufferingWalksFlowerFineCreaturesDetailsSensesVisibleFrightenedAggressionHasteDisruptionDevastationFerns
Author:Joan Halifax
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“My ball is in a bunch of fern, A jolly place to be; An angry man is close astern- He waves his club at me. Well, let him wave-the sky is blue; Go on, old ball, we are but two-We may be down in three, Or nine-or ten-or twenty-five-It matters not; to be alive, Is good enough for me.”

MenWellsMayTwoMatterEnoughThreeFiveAliveSkyGoes OnTenBallsTwentiesBlueAngryGolfWaveClubsNineBunchGood EnoughTwenty FiveJollyFernsAngry Man
Book:Mild And Bitter
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“On the first day of May the people of the crofter townland are up betimes and busy as bees about to swarm. This is the day of migrating, bho baile gu beinn (from townland to moorland), from the winter homestead to the summer sheiling. The summer of their joy is come, the summer of the sheiling, the song, the pipe and the dance, when the people ascend the hill to the clustered bothies, overlooking the distant sea from among the fronded ferns and fragrant heather, where neighbour meets neighbour, and lover meets lover.”

PeopleFirstsMayJoySongSeaLoversSummerWinterBusyHillsBeesNeighbourPipeSwarmsOverlookingFernsHeathers
Author:Alexander Carmichael
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“Of all created things the source is one, Simple, single as love; remember The cell and seed of life, the sphere That is, of child, white bird, and small blue dragon-fly Green fern, and the gold four-petalled tormentilla The ultimate memory. Each latent cell puts out a future, Unfolds its differing complexity As a tree puts forth leaves, and spins a fate Fern-traced, bird feathered, or fish-scaled.”

LifeChildrenRememberMemoriesSimpleWhiteFourFateTreeSourceFutureBirdGoldUltimateBlueGreenSimplicityFishesSeedsCellsComplexityDragonsSpheresLatentFernsWhite Birds
Book:Selected poems
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“There are no medium-sized trees in the deep forest. There are only the towering ones, whose canopy spreads across the sky. Below, in the gloom, there's light for nothing but mosses and ferns. But when a giant falls, leaving a little space ... then there's a race - between the trees on either side, who want to spread out, and the seedlings below, who race to grow up. Sometimes, you can make your own space.”

WantLittlesSometimesLightFallGrowsSidesSpaceRaceGrowing UpTreeSkyLeavingSpreadForestsMediumsGiantsGloomMossFernsCanopySeedlings
Author:Terry Pratchett
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“The grey nurse resumed her knitting as Peter Walsh, on the hot seat beside her, began snoring. In her grey dress, moving her hands indefatigably yet quietly, she seemed like the champion of the rights of sleepers, like one of those spectral presences which rise in twilight in woods made of sky and branches. The solitary traveler, haunter of lanes, disturber of ferns, and devastator of hemlock plants, looking up, suddenly sees the giant figure at the end of the ride.”

MadeEndsHandsMovingRightsSkyFiguresHotDressesPlantWoodsChampionGiantsBranchesSeatsNursePeterTwilightSolitaryTravelerGreyLanesKnittingSleepersSnoringFernsHemlock
Book:Mrs. Dalloway - Broadview Edition
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“Because half a dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray, to not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field; that, of course, they are many in number; or that, after all, they are other than the little, shriveled, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome insects of the hour.”

LittlesCoursesHoursImaginationNumbersHalfImagineFieldsPrayingShadowSilentBritishRingsNoiseLoudDozenImagine ThatInsectsOaksCattleTroublesomeGrasshoppersImportunateHoppingFernsChinks
Book:Edmund Burke: Selected Writings and Speeches
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“Cedars are terribly sensitive to change of time and light - sometimes they are bluish cold-green, then they turn yellow warm-green - sometimes their boughs flop heavy and sometimes float, then they are fairy as ferns and then they droop, heavy as heartaches.”

SometimesLightTurnsChangeColdGreenHeavyWarmSensitiveHeartacheFairyYellowFloatsCedarsFerns
Book:Sunlight in the shadows: the landscape of Emily Carr
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“Each place its own mind, its own psyche! Oak, Madrone, Douglas fir, red-tailed hawk, serpentine in the sandstone, a certain scale to the topography, drenching rains in the winters, fog off-shore in the summers, salmon surging up the streams - all these together make up a particular state of mind, a place-specific intelligence shared by all the humans that dwell therein, but also by the coyotes yapping in those valleys, by the bobcats and the ferns and the spiders, by all beings who live and make their way in that zone. Each place its own psyche. Each sky its own blue.”

WayMindHumansStatesTogetherCertainSkyParticularSummerRedRainBlueWinterScalesStreamsZoneShoreValleysState Of MindFogSpidersOaksHawksSalmonCoyotesFernsTopographyBobcatsSandstone
Author:David Abram
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