We do not "come into" this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree.

Our comprehensive review of Alan Watts's major published works, including *The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are*, revealed that while he frequently employed the core metaphor of humans "coming out" of nature rather than entering it—often using imagery of trees and oceans—the specific phrasing "We do not 'come into' this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree" does not appear verbatim in any digitized primary text or archival transcript. Although the sentiment is unmistakably Watts's and aligns perfectly with his teachings on non-duality, our live database checks across modern anthologies show that this precise sentence likely emerged as a polished paraphrase by later aggregators rather than appearing exactly as written in his own hand. We found no credible evidence pointing to an alternative author or an earlier source that would suggest misattribution, nor have we identified a specific competing claim that constitutes a genuine dispute among scholars. Consequently, while the quote is widely and commonly credited to him due to its thematic accuracy, it lacks the direct textual verification required for a "verified" status in our archives. We are marking this quotation as attributed.