The Island of Missing Trees Quotes

“because there is one thing I have learned: wherever there is war and a painful partition, there will be no winners, human or otherwise.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“Yiorgos said, ‘When Westerners run away like that it means those of us they leave behind are in deep shit.”
― 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. Cartography is another name for stories told by winners.”
― 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

“Even trees of different species show solidarity with one another regardless of their differences, which is more that you can say for so many humans.”
― 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

“We are a family here – a family that gives, shares, listens, sings, laughs, cries, forgives and, most importantly, appreciates good food. Enjoy!”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“Back in Nicosia, when he observed the work of the Committee on Missing Persons, an unspeakable thought had crossed his mind. It was a peaceful thought, as far as he was concerned. 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 forsaken. 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 is what nature did to death, it transformed abrupt endings into a thousand new beginnings.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“Way too often, the first generation of survivors, the ones who had suffered the most, kept their pain close to the surface, memories like splinters lodged under their skin, some protruding, others completely invisible to the eye. Meanwhile, the second generation chose to suppress the past, both what they knew and did not know of it. In contrast, the third generation were eager to dig away and unearth silences. How strange that in families scarred by wars, forced displacements and acts of brutality, it was the youngest who seemed to have the oldest memory.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“You were the one who made me read Cavafy — have you forgotten your own poet? You think you can leave your native land because so many people have done it, so why shouldn't you? After all, the world is full of immigrants, runaways, exiles ... Encouraged, you break free and travel as far as you can, then one day, you look back and realize it was coming with you all along, like a shadow. Everywhere we go, it'll follow us, this city, this island.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“S'agapo," Chico would croon in Greek, I love you, something he has heard Yiorgos whisper to Yusuf. And then, when the truth sank in and he realized that no one was coming, he would pluck another feather from his bruised flesh and repeat to himself a word he had learned in Turkish: "Aglama" — Don't cry.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“Upon deciding to travel to the island, Kostas had called him, hoping he could be the bridge that would take him to Defne, knowing that bridges appear in our lives only when we are ready to cross them.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“If your beard is on fire, others will light their pipes on it.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“She pulled at the cuticle harder. A bright red pool appeared between her flesh and thumbnail. Quickly, she sucked it away.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“You must understand, whenever something terrible happens to a country- or an island a chasm opens between those who go away and those who stay. I'm not saying it's easy for the people who left, I'm sure they have their own hardships, but they have no idea what it was like for the ones who stayed."

"The ones who stayed dealt with the wounds and then the scars, and that must be extremely painful, said Kostas. "But for us... runaways, you might call us... we never have a chance to heal, the wounds always remain open.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“When you hold a skull in your hands, can you tell if it's Christian or Muslim?”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“Well... no species is obliged to like another species, that's for sure. 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 under standing of the oldest living organisms on earth who were here long before you arrived and will still be here after you have gone.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“Khayyam”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“All around the world, wherever there is, or has ever been, a civil war or an ethnic conflict, come to the trees for clues, because we will be the ones that sit silently in communion with human remains.”
― 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

“Without any family support, without a country, we’ll be very lonely,’ she said. ‘Everybody is lonely. We’ll just be more aware of it.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“where what mattered was not the final destination but to be on the move, searching, changing, becoming.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“In the early 1970s, fig trees in Cyprus were affected by a virus that killed them slowly. The symptoms were not visible at first. There was no cracking of the stems, no bleeding cankers, no mottled patterns on the leaves. Even so, something was not quite right. The fruits were dropping prematurely, they tasted sour and oozed goo like pus from a wound. One thing I noticed back then, and have never forgotten, was that remote and seemingly lone trees were not as badly affected as those living together in close proximity. Today,”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“When Ada woke up the next morning, the house was filled with unusual smells. Her aunt had prepared breakfast – or a banquet, more like it. Grilled halloumi with za’atar, baked feta with honey, sesame halva, stuffed tomatoes, green olives with fennel, bread rolls with black olive spread, fried peppers, spicy sausage, spinach börek, puff-pastry cheese straws, pomegranate molasses with tahini, hawthorn jelly, quince jam and a large pan of poached eggs with garlic yogurt were all neatly arrayed on the table.”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“I wonder if the reason why I am more inclined to melancholia than any of them is because I am an immigrant plant and, like all immigrants, I carry with me the shadow of another land?”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“Păi, nimeni nu ştie totul. Nici eu, nici tatăl tău... surprindem doar câteva bucăţele, fiecare dintre noi, şi uneori bucăţelele tale nu se potrivesc cu ale mele, aşa că ce rost are să vorbim despre trecut, asta n-o să facă decât să ne supere pe toţi. Ştii cum e vorba: pune-ţi lacăt la gură. Fiindcă înţelepciunea e alcătuită din zece părţi: nouă părţi de tăcere şi o parte de cuvinte.”

Excerpt From
Insula copacilor dispăruți
Elif Shafak”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“De unde începi povestea cuiva când orice viaţă are mai mult de-un fir şi ce numim noi naştere nu este singurul început, aşa cum nici moartea nu e chiar un sfârşit?”

Excerpt From
Insula copacilor dispăruți
Elif Shafak”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“O memorie durabilă e un blestem. Când vor răul cuiva, bătrânele cipriote nu cer să se abată asupra lui vreo nenorocire strigătoare la cer. Nu se roagă să-1 lovească trăsnetul, sau vreun accident neprevăzut, sau ghinionul. Spun doar:
„Să nu fii niciodată în stare să uiţi.
Să-ţi aminteşti şi-n clipa când eşti băgat în groapă".
Deci cred că melancolia asta de care nu reuşesc niciodată să scap e în genele mele. Scrijelită cu un briceag nevăzut în pielea mea arborescentă, aşa să mă îngroape. Ţinea să termine treaba înainte să se întoarcă fiica lui de la şcoală. Nu voia ca tânăra Ada să asiste la încă o înmormântare.”

Excerpt From
Insula copacilor dispăruți
Elif Shafak”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“Timpul oamenilor e liniar, un şir neîntrerupt şi ordonat dintr-un trecut care ar trebui să se sfârşească o dată pentru totdeauna spre un viitor considerat a fi neatins, neîntinat. Fiecare zi trebuie să fie nouă-nouţă, plină de alte evenimente, fiecare iubire trebuie să fie cu totul diferită de cea dinainte. Foamea rasei umane de noutate e nesăţioasă şi nu sunt sigur că asta îi face prea mult bine.”

Excerpt From
Insula copacilor dispăruți
Elif Shafak”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

“While religions clash to have the final say, and nationalisms teach a sense of superiority and exclusiveness, superstitions on either side of the border coexist in rare harmony”
― Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees