The Overstory

by Richard Powers

‘It’s sometimes hard to say whether a tree is a single thing or whether it’s a million.”

She slaps her forehead. Senile. “My collection kit.”

He’s reached the age when dead is the new normal.

“A reporter once asked Rockefeller how much is enough. His answer: Just a little bit more.

My simple rule of thumb, then, is this: when you cut down a tree, what you make from it should be at least as miraculous as what you cut down.”

Link enough trees together, and a forest grows aware.”

The dying mother opens a hole in the canopy, and its rotting trunk enriches the soil for new seedlings. Call it the ultimate parental sacrifice. The common name for Tachigali versicolor is the suicide tree.”

“You asked me here to talk about home repair. We’re the ones who need repairing. Trees remember what we’ve forgotten. Every speculation must make room for another. Dying is life, too.”

Let me sing to you now, about how people turn into other things.

Nothing has more power than simple conviction.

The best arguments in the world won’t change a person’s mind. The only thing that can do that is a good story.

Of all the waiting terrors, the one he fears most is time.

If you could save yourself, your wife, your child, or even a stranger by burning something down, the law allows you. If someone breaks into your home and starts destroying it, you may stop them however you need to.

What we care for, we will grow to resemble. And what we resemble will hold us, when we are us no longer. . .

There are seeds that need fire. Seeds that need freezing. Seeds that need to be swallowed, etched in digestive acid, expelled as waste. Seeds that must be smashed open before they’ll germinate.

That’s the scary thing about men: get a few together with some simple machines, and they’ll move the world.

The older the word, the more likely it is to be both useful and true.

the word tree and the word truth come from the same root.