The Island of Missing Trees: A Novel
prevarications
Elif Shafak • The Island of Missing Trees: A Novel
habitual cynicism
Elif Shafak • The Island of Missing Trees: A Novel
Parents, especially those as distracted as her father, desperately needed things to run smoothly and were so inclined to believe the system they had created was working fine that they assumed a normality even when surrounded by clues to the contrary.
Elif Shafak • The Island of Missing Trees: A Novel
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. For stories told by those who have lost, there isn’t one.
Elif Shafak • The Island of Missing Trees: A Novel
because that is what nature did to death, it transformed abrupt endings into a thousand new beginnings.
Elif Shafak • The Island of Missing Trees: A Novel
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: A Novel
‘Near East’
Elif Shafak • The Island of Missing Trees: A Novel
between them. All that genetic information passed from