The difference lies in the fact that in Istanbul the remains of a glorious past civilization are everywhere visible. No matter how ill-kept, no matter how neglected or hemmed in they are by concrete monstrosities, the great mosques and other monuments of the city, as well as the lesser detritus of empire in every side street and corner – the little arches, fountains, and neighborhood mosques – inflict heartache on all who live among them. These.
Contrary to popular opinion, a man can shut love out if he wants to. But to do so, he must free himself not only from the woman who has bewitched him but also from the third person in the story, the ghost who has put temptation in his way.
I saw myself in the mirror, and from my expression I had a shocking intimation of the rift between my body and my soul. Whereas my face was drained by defeat and shock, inside my head was another universe: I now understood as an elemental fact of life that while I was here, inside my body was a soul, a meaning, that all things were made of desire, touch, and love, that what I was suffering was composed of the same elements.
I do know this much though: If a man resorts to wiles, guile and petty deceptions, it means he’s nowhere near being in love.
I was trying to think of something to say that would sound more meaningful, but when you get down to it, words aren’t very useful at baring our souls, they’re just something else to hide behind.
Nothing makes you happy in life except love... Neither the books you write or cites you see... I am very lonely... If I say that I want to be here in this city close to you until the end of my life would you believe me?
The essential reason for my loneliness is that I don’t even know where I belong.
The only antidote to the loneliness of the streets was the streets themselves.
Whenever I find myself talking of the beauty and the poetry of the Bosphorus and Istanbul’s dark streets, a voice inside me warns against exaggeration, a tendency perhaps motivated by a wish not to acknowledge the lack of beauty in my own life. If I see my city as beautiful and bewitching, then my life must be so too. A.
If they spoke, it was in whispers.
Perhaps one day someone from a distant land will listen to this story of mine. Isn’t this what lies behind the desire to be inscribed in the pages of a book? Isn’t it just for the sake of this delight that sultans and viziers proffer bags of gold to have their histories written?
There was something pretentious about politics when it was taken to extremes.
She felt herself age suddenly, but also knew what she now desired: to reconcile and grow old in peace, and have the wit to want nothing from the world.
Maybe you’ve understood by now that for men like myself, that is, melancholy men for whom love, agony, happiness and misery are just excuses for maintaining eternal loneliness, life offers neither great joy nor great sadness.
After all, nothing can be as astounding as life. Except for writing. Yes, of course, except for writing, the sole consolation.
It’s not enough to be oppressed, you must also be in the right. Most oppressed people are in the wrong to an almost ridiculous degree. What shall I believe in?
In order to find meaning and readerly pleasure in the universe the writer reveals to us, we feel we must search for the novel’s secret center, and we therefore try to embed every detail of the novel in our memory, as if learning each leaf of a tree by heart.
I’ve never left Istanbul, never left the houses, streets, and neighborhoods of my childhood.
Painting and happiness. I would like my dear readers who have given close attention to my story and my fate to bear these two things in mind, as they are the genesis of my world.
I was supposed to be part of a story, but I fell from there like a leaf in autumn.