Now suddenly he had intimations of destiny; he could see that life had a secret geometry on which his rational mind had no purchase. But even as he was overcome with a desire to subdue his reason and find happiness, he also sensed that – for the moment at least – his yearning for happiness was not yet strong enough.
Initially, the talk of misery spreads throughout the neighborhood, becoming in turn the rumor of ill-fortune and later the certainty of doom.
Hayati ciddiye almayi, gencligimde romanlari ciddiye alarak ogrendim. Edebi romanlar bize hayati ciddiye almayi, her seyin elimizde oldugunu, kisisel kararlarimizin hayatimizi sekillendirdigini gostererek ogretir.
But after my death let it be known that in my old age, at the very end of my life, there was still plenty that made me smile.
An illustration that does not complement a story, in the end, will become but a false idol. Since we cannot possibly believe in an absent story, we will naturally begin believing in the picture itself.
This was a far cry from the meritocratic Ottoman period, when only by dint of an education could a man of humble background hope to rise through the ranks, get rich, and become a pasha.
To give charm of novelty to things of every day, and to excite a feeling analogous to the supernatural, by awakening the mind’s attention from the lethargy of custom, and directing it to the loveliness and wonders of the world before us.
What we essentially want is to draw something unknown to us in all its shadowiness, not something we know in all its illumination.
We read novels because we want to see the world through other experiences, other beings, other eyes, other cultures.
According to my father, the greatest happiness in life was to marry the girl you’d spent your youth reading books with in the passionate pursuit of a shared ideal.
Kenangan-kenangan ini tidak berhubungan satu sama lain, kecuali bahwa semuanya memiliki keterkaitan dengan cinta. Ka tahu betul bahwa kehidupan adalah rangkaian tanpa arti dari berbagai kejadian acak.
Einstein... even failed physics once, but he’d never thought of giving up school to make a living.
God takes note of His creatures’ true intentions. The Lord favors a man who intends to fast during Ramadan over a man who fasts because he can’t find food to eat anyway. Because one of them means it, while the other one doesn’t.
In a smoky corner of my mind I was reminded of a truth drawn from bitter experience: immersing oneself in the problems of a book is a good way to keep from thinking of love.
Whenever I think of these writers together, I am reminded that what gives a city its special character is not just its topography or its buildings but rather the sum total of every chance encounter, every memory, letter, color, and image jostling in its inhabitants’ crowded memories after they have been living, like me, on the same streets for fifty years.
Although everyone knew it as freedom from the laws of Islam, no one was quite sure what else westernization was good for.
Sewaktu muda, Ka sangat meyakini bahwa tidak ada yang lebih terhormat selain mati akibat alasan politik intelektual, atau untuk membela apa yang telah ditulisnya.
After becoming engaged to my grandfather, and before marrying him, she did something rather brave in Istanbul in 1917 – she went out with him to a restaurant.
I told him just so he wouldn’t be fooled by the bright lights of Istanbul into thinking that life was somehow easy.
They were able to deduce from his reports that the sharbat was poisonous to Turks but not to Kurds; however, because of the official state position that Kurds and Turks are indistinguishable, they kept this conclusion to themselves.