What is more mortifying than to feel that you have missed the plum for want of courage to shake the tree?
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Instinct must be thwarted just as one prunes the branches of a tree so that it will grow better.
If a leaf fell from a tree, I'd stop juggling and play with the leaf. I went to my prop bag and got a little bandage and stuck the leaf back on the tree. People loved it.
I think that if you shake the tree, you ought to be around when the fruit falls to pick it up.
When I first read the story 'Guts' in workshop - my fellow writers that I've been meeting with for almost 20 years - they laughed; they didn't have any kind of shock reaction.
I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do.
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.
All other ways of mortification are vain, all helps leave us helpless, it must be done by the Spirit.
While bringing about reforms and improving institutions, we have to be cautious that while shaking the tree to remove the bad fruit, we do not bring down the tree itself.
I am not a tree-hugger and I don't think mine is an extreme point of view.
We smile at the ignorance of the savage who cuts down the tree in order to reach its fruit; but the same blunder is made by every person who is over eager and impatient in the pursuit of pleasure.