The Island of Missing Trees Quotes

“Arriving there is what you are destined for, But do not hurry the journey at all …”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“A map is a two-dimensional representation with arbitrary symbols and incised lines that decide who is to be our enemy and who is to be our friend, who deserves our love and who deserves our hatred and who, our sheer indifference.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“When elderly Cypriot women wish ill on someone, they don't ask for anything blatantly bad to befall them. They don't pray for lightning bolts, unforseen accidents or sudden reversals of fortune. They simply say,
May you never be able to forget.
May you go to your grave still remembering.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“You might even say there is a tree for every mood and every moment. When you have something precious to give to the universe, a song or a poem, you should first share it with a golden oak before anyone else. If you are feeling discouraged and defenceless, look for a Mediterranean cypress or a flowering horse chestnut. Both are strikingly resilient, and they will tell you about all the fires they have survived. And if you want to emerge stronger and kinder from your trials, find an aspen to learn from – a tree so tenacious it can fend off even the flames that aim to destroy it. If you are hurting and have no one willing to listen to you, it might do you good to spend time beside a sugar maple. If, on the other hand, you are suffering from excessive self-esteem, do pay a visit to a cherry tree and observe its blossoms, which, though undoubtedly pretty, are no less ephemeral than vainglory. By the time you leave, you might feel a bit more humble, more grounded. To reminisce about the past, seek out a holly to sit under; to dream about the future, choose a magnolia instead. And if it is friends and friendships on your mind, the most suitable companion would be a spruce or a ginkgo. When you arrive at a crossroads and don’t know which path to take, contemplating quietly by a sycamore might help. If you are an artist in need of inspiration, a blue jacaranda or a sweetly scented mimosa could stir your imagination. If it is renewal you are after, seek a wych elm, and if you have too many regrets, a weeping willow will offer solace. 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 skins. 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

“And what about our ancestors – can they, too, continue to exist through us? Is that why, when you meet some individuals – just as with some trees – you can't help feeling that they must be much older than their chronological age? Where do you start someone's story when every life has more than one thread and what we call birth is not the only beginning nor is death exactly an end?”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“Arboreal-time is cyclical, recurrent, perennial; the past and the future breathe within this moment, and the present does not necessarily flow in one direction; instead it draws circles within circles, like the rings you find when you cut us down.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“was it also possible to inherit something as intangible and immeasurable as sorrow?”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“because that is what nature did to death, it transformed abrupt endings into a thousand new beginnings.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“Hey, I am serious. And 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.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“I reminded myself that life was not a trade agreement, a calculated give-and-take, and not every affection needed to be returned in kind,”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“Did subsequent generations ineluctably start where previous ones had given up, absorbing all of their disappointments and unfulfilled dreams? Was the present moment a mere continuation of the past, every word an afterword to what had already been said or left unsaid?”
― 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”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“Cartography is another name for stories told by winners. For stories told by those who have lost, there isn’t one.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“Where do you start someone’s story when every life has more than one thread and what we call birth is not the only beginning, nor is death exactly an end?”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“trees of different species show solidarity with one another regardless of their differences, which is more than you can say for so many humans.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“as with some trees – you can’t help feeling that they must be much older than their chronological age? Where do you start someone’s story when every life has more than one thread and what we call birth is not the only beginning, nor is death exactly an end?”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“A fig is not exactly a fruit, you see. It is a synconium – a fascinating structure that hides flowers and seeds in its cavity, with a barely visible opening through which wasps can enter and deposit their pollen. And sometimes, seizing the opportunity, ants, too, crawl through that opening and eat what they can.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“At night we heard the howling of the gale and it brought to mind things untamed and unbidden, things within each of us that we were not yet ready to face, let alone comprehend.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“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

“When the first wave arrived, barely touching her toes, it was so light and translucent a ripple that you might be forgiven for thinking it insignificant, that it would vanish soon, leaving no trace. But then followed another wave, and the next one, rising as far as her ankles, and the one after that covering her knees, and before you knew it she was immersed in liquid pain, up to her neck, drowning.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“Our island, with its blossoming trees and lush meadows, was an ideal place to rest and recharge from the butterfly's perspective. Upon leaving Cyprus, she would wing her way to Europe, whence she would never return, although some day her descendants would. Her children would make the journey in reverse, and their children would take the same route back, and thus it would continue, this generational migration, where what mattered was not the final destination but to be on the move, searching, changing, becoming.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“There are moments in life when everyone has to become a warrior of some kind. If you are a poet, you fight with your words; if you are an artist, you fight with your paintings … But you can’t say, “Sorry, I’m a poet, I’ll pass.” You don’t say that when there’s so much suffering, inequality, injustice.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“I wish I could have told him that loneliness is a human invention. Trees are never lonely. Humans think they know with certainty where their being ends and someone else's starts. With their roots tangled and caught up underground, linked to fungi and bacteria, trees harbour no such illusions. For us, everything is interconnected.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

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

“Human remains … What exactly did that mean? Was it a few hard bones and soft tissue? Clothes and accessories? Things solid and compact enough to fit inside a coffin? Or was it rather the intangible – the words we send out into the ether, the dreams we keep to ourselves, the heartbeats we skip beside our lovers, the voids we try to fill and can never adequately articulate – when all was said and done, what was left of an entire life, a human being … and could that really be disinterred from the ground?”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“wherever there is war and a painful partition, there will be no winners, human or otherwise.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“One day you’ll look back and say, why was I even worried about that?”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“No storyteller is completely objective. But I have always tried to grasp every story through diverse angels, shifting perspectives, conflicting narratives. 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

“The glint does not come from a living being, but from an antique pocket watch - eighteen-carat gold encased with mother of pearl, engraved with the lines from a poem:

"Arriving there is what you are destined for,
But do not hurry the journey at all..."

And there on the back are two letters, or more precisely, the same letter written twice:

Y & Y”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“Even trees of different species show solidarity with one another regardless of their differences, which is more than you can say for so many humans.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees