How can I stand on the ground every day and not feel its power? How can I live my life stepping on this stuff and not wonder at it? Science says that an acre of soil produces one horsepower every day. But you could pour gasoline all over the ground forever and never see it sprout maple trees. – William Bryant Logan, Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth

O ye Sun and Moon, oh ye beans and roses, oh ye jigs and juleps, Bless ye the Lord, Praise Him and Magnify Him Forever. Amen. – Virginia Cary Hudson, “Gardening,” O Ye Jigs & Juleps!, 1962

I am writing in the garden. To write as one should of a garden one must not write outside it or merely somewhere near it, but in the garden. – Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849–1924), In the Garden, published posthumously