The Overstory

by

Richard Powers

Nicholas Hoel is a creative and solitary young man from Iowa, a descendent of immigrants from Norway and Ireland. The latest of a long line of Hoels, Nick breaks from his family’s farming roots and becomes an artist. Even as a child, he is especially obsessed with the family’s giant chestnut tree and their decades-old ritual of photographing it once every month, and when he attends art school in Chicago he focuses on tree-related drawings and sculptures. Nick’s immediate family dies in a tragic gas-leak accident one night, and in the aftermath he lives alone in their house for years, working on his art. Olivia shows up at his house one day and invites him to come with her. They share an intense connection from the start, and Nick is immediately smitten with Olivia and agrees to go to California with her. The two end up living together in the redwood Mimas for almost a year, which becomes an almost sacred experience for Nick and the happiest time of his life. After Olivia’s death in the fire, Nick feels entirely lost and broken. He moves from place to place, doing menial work but still feeling compelled to keep making activist art about trees. This takes the form of murals, videos, and sculptures that various other characters see at several points in the book. Nick’s character shows how art can be a catalyst for changing people’s minds and improving the world. In some ways he is even a stand-in for Powers himself, using his art to promote the same kind of messages that Powers puts forth in The Overstory.

Nicholas Hoel/Watchman Quotes in The Overstory

The The Overstory quotes below are all either spoken by Nicholas Hoel/Watchman or refer to Nicholas Hoel/Watchman. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Humans and Trees Theme Icon
).
Part 1: Roots—Nicholas Hoel Quotes

The generations of grudge, courage, forbearance, and surprise generosity: everything a human being might call the story happens outside his photos’ frame. Inside the frame, through hundreds of revolving seasons, there is only that solo tree, its fissured bark spiraling upward into early middle age, growing at the speed of wood.

Related Characters: Nicholas Hoel/Watchman, Frank Hoel Jr.
Related Symbols: The Hoel Chestnut Tree
Page Number: 16
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 1: Roots—Patricia Westerford Quotes

These people are nothing to Plant-Patty. And yet their lives have long been connected, deep underground. Their kinship will work like an unfolding book. The past always comes clearer, in the future.

Years from now, she’ll write a book of her own, The Secret Forest. Its opening page will read:

You and the tree in your backyard come from a common ancestor. A billion and a half years ago, the two of you parted ways. But even now, after an immense journey in separate directions, that tree and you still share a quarter of your genes….

Related Characters: Dr. Patricia “Patty” Westerford (speaker), Nicholas Hoel/Watchman, Mimi Ma/Mulberry, Adam Appich/Maple, Douglas “Douggie” Pavlicek/Doug-fir, Neelay Mehta, Dorothy Cazaly Brinkman, Ray Brinkman
Page Number: 132
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2: Trunk Quotes

"We're not saying don't cut anything." She dangles her arm, reaching out to the men from two hundred feet away. "We're saying, cut like it's a gift, not like you've earned it. Nobody likes to take more gift than they need. And this tree? This tree would be a gift so big, it would be like Jesus coming down and…"

She trickles off on a thought that Watchman has at the same moment. Been there. Felled that, too.

Related Characters: Olivia Vandergriff/Maidenhair (speaker), Nicholas Hoel/Watchman
Page Number: 288-289
Explanation and Analysis:

"It's so simple," she says. "So obvious. Exponential growth inside a finite system leads to collapse. But people don't see it. So the authority of people is bankrupt." Maidenhair fixes him with a look between interest and pity. Adam just wants the cradle to stop rocking. "Is the house on fire?"

A shrug. A sideways pull of the lips. "Yes."

"And you want to observe the handful of people who're screaming, Put it out, when everyone else is happy watching things burn."

A minute ago, this woman was the subject of Adam's observational study. Now he wants to confide in her. "It has a name. We call it the bystander effect. I once let my professor die because no one else in the lecture hall stood up. The larger the group . . ."

"…the harder it is to cry, Fire?"

"Because if there were a real problem, surely someone—"

"—lots of people would already have—"

Related Characters: Olivia Vandergriff/Maidenhair (speaker), Nicholas Hoel/Watchman (speaker), Adam Appich/Maple (speaker), Rubin Rabinowski
Page Number: 321
Explanation and Analysis:

On his fourth night in the cell, Nick dreams about the Hoel family chestnut. He watches it, sped up thirty-two million times, reveal again its invisible plan. He remembers, in his sleep, on the cot's thin mattress, the way the time-lapse tree waved its swelling arms. The way those arms tested, explored, aligned in the light, writing messages in the air. In that dream, the trees laugh at them. Save us? What a human thing to do. Even the laugh takes years.

Related Characters: Nicholas Hoel/Watchman
Related Symbols: The Hoel Chestnut Tree
Page Number: 329
Explanation and Analysis:

"You're a psychologist," Mimi says to the recruit. "How do we convince people that we're right?"

The newest Cascadian takes the bait. "The best arguments in the world won't change a person's mind. The only thing that can do that is a good story."

Maidenhair tells that story that the rest of the campfire knows by heart. First she was dead, and there was nothing. Then she came back, and there was everything, with beings of light telling her how the most wondrous products of four billion years of life needed her help.

Related Characters: Mimi Ma/Mulberry (speaker), Adam Appich/Maple (speaker), Olivia Vandergriff/Maidenhair, Nicholas Hoel/Watchman, Douglas “Douggie” Pavlicek/Doug-fir
Page Number: 336
Explanation and Analysis:

“How long can it last?”

“Not long,” he promises.

She claws at him, an animal falling from a great height. Then she calms again. “But not this? This will never end—what we have. Right?”

He waits too long, and time replies for him. She struggles for a few seconds to hear the answer, before softening into whatever happens next.

Related Characters: Olivia Vandergriff/Maidenhair (speaker), Nicholas Hoel/Watchman (speaker)
Related Symbols: The Hoel Chestnut Tree
Page Number: 352
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3: Crown Quotes

Species disappear. Patricia writes of them. Too many species to count. Reefs bleach and wetlands dry. Things are going lost that have not yet been found. Kinds of life vanish a thousand times faster than the baseline extinction rate. Forest larger than most countries turns to farmland. Look at the life around you; now delete half of what you see.

More people are born in twenty years than were alive in the year of Douglas's birth.

Nick hides and works. What's twenty years, to work that's slower than trees?

We are not, one of Adam's papers proves, wired to see slow, background change, when something bright and colorful is waving in our faces.

Related Characters: Nicholas Hoel/Watchman (speaker), Douglas “Douggie” Pavlicek/Doug-fir (speaker), Dr. Patricia “Patty” Westerford (speaker), Adam Appich/Maple
Page Number: 374
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 4: Seeds Quotes

Although he should just shut up, so much time has passed since Nick has had the luxury of saying anything to anyone that he can't resist. His hand goes out, gesturing toward the conifers. "It amazes me how much they say, when you let them. They're not that hard to hear."

The man chuckles. "We've been trying to tell you that since 1492."

The man has jerked meat. Nick doles out the last of his fruit and nuts. "I'm going to have to think about restocking soon."

For some reason, his colleague finds this funny, too. The man swivels his head around the woods as if there were forage everywhere. As if people could live here, and die, with just a little looking and listening. From nowhere, in a heartbeat, Nick understands what Maidenhair's voices must always have meant. The most wondrous products of four billion years of life need help.

Not them; us. Help from all quarters.

Related Characters: Nicholas Hoel/Watchman (speaker), The Man in the Red Plaid Coat (speaker)
Related Symbols: The Hoel Chestnut Tree
Page Number: 493
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Overstory LitChart as a printable PDF.
The Overstory PDF

Nicholas Hoel/Watchman Quotes in The Overstory

The The Overstory quotes below are all either spoken by Nicholas Hoel/Watchman or refer to Nicholas Hoel/Watchman. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Humans and Trees Theme Icon
).
Part 1: Roots—Nicholas Hoel Quotes

The generations of grudge, courage, forbearance, and surprise generosity: everything a human being might call the story happens outside his photos’ frame. Inside the frame, through hundreds of revolving seasons, there is only that solo tree, its fissured bark spiraling upward into early middle age, growing at the speed of wood.

Related Characters: Nicholas Hoel/Watchman, Frank Hoel Jr.
Related Symbols: The Hoel Chestnut Tree
Page Number: 16
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 1: Roots—Patricia Westerford Quotes

These people are nothing to Plant-Patty. And yet their lives have long been connected, deep underground. Their kinship will work like an unfolding book. The past always comes clearer, in the future.

Years from now, she’ll write a book of her own, The Secret Forest. Its opening page will read:

You and the tree in your backyard come from a common ancestor. A billion and a half years ago, the two of you parted ways. But even now, after an immense journey in separate directions, that tree and you still share a quarter of your genes….

Related Characters: Dr. Patricia “Patty” Westerford (speaker), Nicholas Hoel/Watchman, Mimi Ma/Mulberry, Adam Appich/Maple, Douglas “Douggie” Pavlicek/Doug-fir, Neelay Mehta, Dorothy Cazaly Brinkman, Ray Brinkman
Page Number: 132
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2: Trunk Quotes

"We're not saying don't cut anything." She dangles her arm, reaching out to the men from two hundred feet away. "We're saying, cut like it's a gift, not like you've earned it. Nobody likes to take more gift than they need. And this tree? This tree would be a gift so big, it would be like Jesus coming down and…"

She trickles off on a thought that Watchman has at the same moment. Been there. Felled that, too.

Related Characters: Olivia Vandergriff/Maidenhair (speaker), Nicholas Hoel/Watchman
Page Number: 288-289
Explanation and Analysis:

"It's so simple," she says. "So obvious. Exponential growth inside a finite system leads to collapse. But people don't see it. So the authority of people is bankrupt." Maidenhair fixes him with a look between interest and pity. Adam just wants the cradle to stop rocking. "Is the house on fire?"

A shrug. A sideways pull of the lips. "Yes."

"And you want to observe the handful of people who're screaming, Put it out, when everyone else is happy watching things burn."

A minute ago, this woman was the subject of Adam's observational study. Now he wants to confide in her. "It has a name. We call it the bystander effect. I once let my professor die because no one else in the lecture hall stood up. The larger the group . . ."

"…the harder it is to cry, Fire?"

"Because if there were a real problem, surely someone—"

"—lots of people would already have—"

Related Characters: Olivia Vandergriff/Maidenhair (speaker), Nicholas Hoel/Watchman (speaker), Adam Appich/Maple (speaker), Rubin Rabinowski
Page Number: 321
Explanation and Analysis:

On his fourth night in the cell, Nick dreams about the Hoel family chestnut. He watches it, sped up thirty-two million times, reveal again its invisible plan. He remembers, in his sleep, on the cot's thin mattress, the way the time-lapse tree waved its swelling arms. The way those arms tested, explored, aligned in the light, writing messages in the air. In that dream, the trees laugh at them. Save us? What a human thing to do. Even the laugh takes years.

Related Characters: Nicholas Hoel/Watchman
Related Symbols: The Hoel Chestnut Tree
Page Number: 329
Explanation and Analysis:

"You're a psychologist," Mimi says to the recruit. "How do we convince people that we're right?"

The newest Cascadian takes the bait. "The best arguments in the world won't change a person's mind. The only thing that can do that is a good story."

Maidenhair tells that story that the rest of the campfire knows by heart. First she was dead, and there was nothing. Then she came back, and there was everything, with beings of light telling her how the most wondrous products of four billion years of life needed her help.

Related Characters: Mimi Ma/Mulberry (speaker), Adam Appich/Maple (speaker), Olivia Vandergriff/Maidenhair, Nicholas Hoel/Watchman, Douglas “Douggie” Pavlicek/Doug-fir
Page Number: 336
Explanation and Analysis:

“How long can it last?”

“Not long,” he promises.

She claws at him, an animal falling from a great height. Then she calms again. “But not this? This will never end—what we have. Right?”

He waits too long, and time replies for him. She struggles for a few seconds to hear the answer, before softening into whatever happens next.

Related Characters: Olivia Vandergriff/Maidenhair (speaker), Nicholas Hoel/Watchman (speaker)
Related Symbols: The Hoel Chestnut Tree
Page Number: 352
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3: Crown Quotes

Species disappear. Patricia writes of them. Too many species to count. Reefs bleach and wetlands dry. Things are going lost that have not yet been found. Kinds of life vanish a thousand times faster than the baseline extinction rate. Forest larger than most countries turns to farmland. Look at the life around you; now delete half of what you see.

More people are born in twenty years than were alive in the year of Douglas's birth.

Nick hides and works. What's twenty years, to work that's slower than trees?

We are not, one of Adam's papers proves, wired to see slow, background change, when something bright and colorful is waving in our faces.

Related Characters: Nicholas Hoel/Watchman (speaker), Douglas “Douggie” Pavlicek/Doug-fir (speaker), Dr. Patricia “Patty” Westerford (speaker), Adam Appich/Maple
Page Number: 374
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 4: Seeds Quotes

Although he should just shut up, so much time has passed since Nick has had the luxury of saying anything to anyone that he can't resist. His hand goes out, gesturing toward the conifers. "It amazes me how much they say, when you let them. They're not that hard to hear."

The man chuckles. "We've been trying to tell you that since 1492."

The man has jerked meat. Nick doles out the last of his fruit and nuts. "I'm going to have to think about restocking soon."

For some reason, his colleague finds this funny, too. The man swivels his head around the woods as if there were forage everywhere. As if people could live here, and die, with just a little looking and listening. From nowhere, in a heartbeat, Nick understands what Maidenhair's voices must always have meant. The most wondrous products of four billion years of life need help.

Not them; us. Help from all quarters.

Related Characters: Nicholas Hoel/Watchman (speaker), The Man in the Red Plaid Coat (speaker)
Related Symbols: The Hoel Chestnut Tree
Page Number: 493
Explanation and Analysis: