“Probably they don’t think, the trees; […] But if trees did think, my God, and could speak, who knows what the poor things would say to us, who, to provide ourselves with shade, force them to grow in the midst of the city? As they see themselves reflected like this in the shop-windows, they seem to ask what they’re doing here, among all the busy people, amid the noisy bustle of city life. […] They show no sign of having ears. But who can say? Maybe trees, to grow, need silence.”
—Luigi Pirandello. One, No One, One Hundred Thousand. Book Two (XI. Re-entering the city)
