Let everyone know, I lived a very happy life.
Immersing oneself in the problems of a book is a good way to keep from thinking of love.
Oscar Wilde always makes me smile – with respect and admiration. His short stories prove that it is possible to be both sarcastic, even cynical, but deeply compassionate. Just seeing the cover of one of Wildes books in a bookshop makes me smile.
Actually, it’s the other way round. In a poor country, the only consolation people can have is the one that comes from their beliefs.
We fall in love more deeply when were unhappy.
The writers secret is not inspiration – for it is never clear where it comes from – it is his stubbornness, his patience.
Istanbul is a vast place. There are very conservative neighbourhoods, there are places that are upper class, Westernised, consuming Western culture.
I was at the end of my tether when my first book was published. For eight years I didn’t make a penny, I worked so hard, didn’t drink, didn’t enjoy life.
Writing my own diary is the best form of remembrance, but only for my own use. I need these notes; it’s like an impulse.
Ka knew very well that life was a meaningless string of random incidents.
The real question is how much suffering we’ve caused our womenfolk by turning headscarves into symbols – and using women as pawns in a political game.
It’s such a shame that we know so little about our own country, that we can’t find it in our hearts to love our own kind. Instead we admire those who show our country disrespect and betray its people.
I need a moment of time for myself every day, like a child playing with his things. When I travel, I routinely find a quiet place, open my diary and write something in it.
I am nothing but a corpse now, a body at the bottom of a well.
For the traveler we see leaning on his neighbor is an honest and well-meaning man and full of melancholy, like those Chekhov characters so laden with virtues that they never know success in life.
My diary has its own kind of magic. It gives me the feeling of having accomplished something. On days when I don’t have time for this, I feel tortured.
Try to discover who I am from my choice of words and colors, as attentive people like yourselves might examine footprints to catch a thief.
Many great authors of the 19th century wrote under conditions of strict censorship. The great thing about the art of writing a novel, is that you can write about anything. All you have to say is that it’s fiction.
A writer in someone who spends years patiently trying to discover the second being inside him, and the world that makes him who he is.
The first thing I learned at school was that some people are idiots; the second thing I learned was that some are even worse.