The Island of Missing Trees Quotes

“Maybe we give other names to grief because we are too scared to call it by its name.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“Superstitions are the shadows of fears unknown.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“It crossed his mind that maybe one of the most telling differences between the young and the old lay in this detail. As you aged you cared less and less about what others thought of you, and only then could you be more free.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“She was no part of anything. In her unbroken loneliness, she was complete. Never had she felt so exposed, yet si powerful.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“When you are in trouble or at your lowest point, and have no one in whom to confide, a hawthorn would be the right choice. There is a reason why hawthorns are home to fairies and known to protect pots of treasure. For wisdom, try a beech; for intelligence, a pine; for bravery, a rowan; for generosity, a hazel; for joy, a juniper; and for when you need to learn to let go of what you cannot control, a birch with its white-silver bark, peeling and shedding layers like old skin. Then again, if it's love you're after, or love you have lost, come to the fig, always the fig.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“Not a very sensible thing to do, I admit, to fall for someone who is not of your kind, someone who will only complicate your life, disrupt your routine and mess with your sense of stability and rootedness. But, then again, anyone who expects love to be sensible has perhaps never loved.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“The places where we were born are the shape of our lives, even when we are away from them.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“There was something childlike in the way grown-ups had a need for stories. They held a naive belief that by telling an inspiring anecdote-the right fable at the right time-they could lift their children's moods, motivate them to great achievements and simply change reality. There was no point in telling them that life was more complicated than that and words less magical than they presumed.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“It is a map, the body of an ex-lover, pulling you into its depths and bringing you back to a part of yourself that you thought had been left behind sometime, somewhere. It is a mirror too, though, chipped and cracked, showing all the ways you have changed; and, like every mirror, it dreams of becoming whole again.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“Truth is a rhizome – an underground plant stem with lateral shoots. You need to dig deep to reach it and, once unearthed, you have to treat it with respect.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“She could detect other people’s sadnesses the way one animal could smell another of its kind a mile away.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“At the end of the day, we all remember for the same reason we try to forget: to survive in a world that neither understands nor values us.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“Wisdom consists of ten parts: nine parts of silence, one part of words.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“The places where we were born are the shape of our lives, even when we are away from them.
Especially then.
Now and again in my sleep I find myself in Nicosia, standing under a familiar sun, my shadow falling against the rocks, reaching towards the prickly broom bushes that burst with blossoms, each as perfect and bright as the golden coins in a children's fable.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“Humans tell their children to paint the earth in one colour alone. They imagine the sky in blue, the grass in green, the sun in yellow, and the earth entirely in brown. If only they knew they have rainbows under their feet.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“Life below the surface is neither simple nor monotonous. The subterranean, contrary to what most people think, is bustling with activity. As you tunnel deep down, you might be surprised to see the soil take on unexpected shades. Rusty red, soft peach, warm mustard, lime green, rich turquoise … Humans teach their children to paint the earth in one colour alone. They imagine the sky in blue, the grass in green, the sun in yellow and the earth entirely in brown.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“legends are there to tell us what history has forgotten.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“Today, I think of fanaticism – of any type – as a viral disease.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“We are scared of happiness, you see. From a tender age we have been taught that in the air, in the Etesian wind, an uncanny exchange is at work, so that for every morsel of contentment there will follow a morsel of suffering, for every peal of laughter there is a drop of tear ready to roll, because that is the way of this strange world, and hence we try not to look too happy, even on days when we might feel so inside.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“Throughout my long life, I have observed, again and again, this psychological pendulum that drives human nature. Every few decades they sway into a zone of unbridled optimism and insist on seeing everything through a rosy filter, only to be challenged and shaken by events and catapulted back into their habitual apathy and listless indifference.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“I believe one reason why humans find it hard to understand plants is because, in order to connect with something other than themselves and genuinely care about it, they need to interact with a face, an image that mirrors theirs as closely as possible.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“What would we do, each of us, if we were young people in 1930s Burgos, caught up in the midst of civil war? It’s easy to claim in hindsight we’d do the right thing. But, in truth, none of us knows where we would be when the fire is raging.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“They ooze down slowly, a flow so slight as to be imperceptible, moving across time and space, until they find a crack in which to settle and coagulate. The path of an inherited trauma is random; you never know who might get it, but someone will.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“The bodies of the missing, if unearthed, would be taken care of by their loved ones and given the proper burials they deserved. But even those who would never be found were not exactly foresaken. Nature tended to them. Wild thyme and sweet marjoram grew from the same soil, the ground splitting open like a crack in a window to make way for possibilities. Myriad birds, bats, and ants carried those seeds far away, where they would grow into fresh vegetation. In the most surprising ways, the victims continued to live. Because that it was nature did to death. It transformed abrupt endings into a thousand new beginnings.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“I want you to understand a fundamental rule about love. You see, there are two kinds: the surface and the deep water. Now, Aphrodite emerged from foam,remember? Foam love is a nice feeling, but just as superficial. When it’s gone it’s gone, nothing remains. Always aim for the kind of love that comes from the deep. … foam love is interested in foam beauty. Sea love seeks sea beauty and you, my heart, deserve sea love, the strong and profound and enchanting type.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“First-generation immigrants... Both eternally grateful for the chances life has given them and scarred by what it has snatched away, always out of place, separated from others by some unspoken experience, like survivors of a car accident.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“Because in real life, unlike in history books, stories come to us not in their entirety but in bits and pieces, broken segments and partial echoes, a full sentence here, a fragment there, a clue hidden in between.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“I listened to her with respect, knowing what resilient migrants they are, seen almost everywhere across the globe. They can fly for an impressive 2,500 miles. I have never understood why humans regard butterflies as fragile. Optimists they may be, but fragile, never!”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“remote and seemingly lone trees were not as badly affected as those living together in close proximity. Today, I think of fanaticism – of any type – as a viral disease. Creeping in menacingly, ticking like a pendulum clock that never winds down, it takes hold of you faster when you are part of an enclosed, homogenous unit. Better to keep some distance from all collective beliefs and certainties, I always remind myself.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“Trees might not have eyes but we have vision.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees