The Island of Missing Trees

by Elif Shafak

But, then again, anyone who expects love to be sensible has perhaps never loved.

But if you are going to claim, as humans do, to be superior to all life forms, past and present, then you must gain an understanding of the oldest living organisms on earth who were here long before you arrived and will still be here after you have gone.

If families resemble trees, as they say, arborescent structures with entangled roots and individual branches jutting out at awkward angles, family traumas are like thick, translucent resin dripping from a cut in the bark. They trickle down generations.

What we think is impossible changes with every generation.’

Everything they learn, they transfer to the next generation. Knowledge is nobody’s property. You receive it, you give it back.