So when you do your family tree and Margaret Cho does hers, and... Wanda Sykes and John LEGEND... we're adding to the database that scholars can then draw from to generalize about the COMPLEXITY of the American experience. And that's the contribution that family TREES make to broader SCHOLARSHIP.

In the COUNTRYSIDE, planting FLOWERS, VEGETABLES and TREES is not DIFFICULT.

A shan-shui CITY is a modern city, a high-density URBAN situation, but we pay more attention to the environment. We BRING waterfalls; we bring in a lot of trees and gardens. We TREAT ARCHITECTURE as a landscape.

Teaching is like flying a plane. You leave school one DAY feeling like you're spiraling down toward the trees, expecting that the next day the CRASH will come. You brace yourself for the impact, only to find that THINGS have leveled out at treetop HEIGHT, and you climb and enjoy the remainder of the flight.

Musclemen grow on trees. They can tense their muscles and look good in a MIRROR. So what? I'm interested in practical STRENGTH that's going to help me RUN, jump, twist, PUNCH.

I HELP out at Tall Trees, which my aunt set up on the CENTRAL COAST. It's where INTELLECTUALLY impaired young PEOPLE can paint. Their artwork's sent to hospitals all over Australia to brighten up their rooms.

I was AMAZED at the HOUSE that I grew up in; it looks practically identical to the way it was, but I couldn't recognize it because of the size of the TREES.

I am just a PERSON who adores TREES.

The coniferous forests of the Yosemite Park, and of the Sierra in general, surpass all others of their kind in America, or INDEED the WORLD, not only in the size and BEAUTY of the trees, but in the number of SPECIES assembled together, and the grandeur of the mountains they are growing on.

One of the best ways to SEE tree flowers is to CLIMB one of the tallest trees and to get into CLOSE, tingling touch with them, and then look BROAD.

Love doesn't grow on TREES like apples in Eden - it's something you have to make. And you MUST USE your IMAGINATION too.

The smartest THING I ever did as a writer was hire a retired conservation AGENT to blaze a hiking trail for me. It's nothing FANCY - just a narrow path that meanders for a little over a mile through the woods near my home. But that trail through the trees has BECOME my therapist, my personal trainer, and my best editor.

Australians were UNIQUE DUE to our corals, our apples, our GUM TREES and our kangaroos.