“Actually, we hadn’t really stepped into a clearing: it was more that the thin woods we’d come through had ended, and now in front of us there was open marshland as far as we could see. The pale sky looked vast and you could see it reflected every so often in the patches of water breaking up the land. Not so long ago, the woods must have extended further, because you could see here and there ghostly dead trunks poking out of the soil, most of them broken off only a few feet up. And beyond the dead trunks, maybe sixty yards away, was the boat, sitting beached in the marshes under the weak sun.”

                     --Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go, 2005

“I WILL MAKE A FOREST CLOSE IN UPON YOU–IT WILL FORM A LIVING WALL AROUND YOUR VILLAGE!!! THEN I WILL CAUSE THE ROOTS OF THE TREES TO GROW–TO SPREAD OUT BENEATH YOUR TOWN! THEY WILL ENTWINE AROUND EACH OTHER, FORMING A HUGE, MIGHTY NET! AND THEN YOU WILL WITNESS THE GREATEST FEAT THAT YOUR MORTAL EYES HAVE EVER BEHELD…FOR AT MY COMMAND, THE TREES WILL RISE! THEY WILL CARRY YOU AND YOUR TOWN UP FROM THIS PLANET, OUT BEYOND YOUR SOLAR SYSTEM, AND INTO THE VAST REACHES OF SPACE…FOR I AM GROOT, OVERLORD OF ALL THE TIMBER IN THE GALAXY! ”

                     --Stan Lee, TALES TO ASTONISH, Vol. 1, No. 13, 
            "I Challenged...Groot! The Monster From Planet X!," 1960