I see two opposite tendencies in Turkish society: people feel demoralized, they lose the interest in politics and retreat to their private lives; or they become very angry and even more politicized, and radicalized. Both trends are troublesome.
Every true love and friendship is a story of unexpected transformation. If we are the same person before and after we loved, that means we haven’t loved enough.
Article Five: If you have no reason or ability to accomplish anything, then just practice the art of becoming.
The words that come out of our mouths do not vanish but are perpetually stored in infinite space, and they will come back to us in due time.
Because time is a drop in the ocean, and you cannot measure off one drop against another to see which one is bigger, which one is smaller.
Isn’t connecting people to distant lands and culture one of the strengths of good literature?
But let us not forget that cities are like human beings. They are born, they go through childhood and adolescence, they grow old, and eventually they die.
We cannot abandon this rabbit hole for fear of a traumatic encounter with our own culture.
You see, unlike in the movies, there is no THE END sign flashing at the end of books. When I’ve read a book, I don’t feel like I’ve finished anything. So I start a new one.
I hunt everywhere for a life worth living and a knowledge worth knowing. Having roots nowhere, I have everywhere to go.
How can you blame others for disrespecting you when you think of yourself as unworthy of respect?
Stop running after the waves. Let the sea come to you.
Almost half of the Turkish population believes it is not legitimate to criticize the government. Interestingly, this correlates with the number of supporters of Erdogan’s government.
Our politics is very masculine, very aggressive, and it’s very polarizing. And the pace of this development has increased in recent years. Erdogan is, in my eyes, the most polarizing politician in recent Turkish political history.
Moments are born and moments die. For new experiences to come to life, old ones need to wither away.
Feminists are now being vilified in politics, erdogan used to speak more embracingly, saying he was the leader of everyone, whether they voted for him or not. He sounds as if he puts a distance between himself and half the nation.
When I am writing political op-eds, I do think carefully about the impact of my words. When I am writing fiction, it’s a different story. In my fiction I am more reckless. I don’t care about the real world until I am done with the book.
Either grant me the bliss of the ignorant or give me the strength to bear the knowledge.
Eternity does not mean infinite time, but simply timelessness.
Stories cannot demolish frontiers, but they can punch holes in our mental walls, and through those holes we can get a glimpse of the other and sometimes even like what we see.
Identity politics divides us; fiction connects. One is interested in sweeping generalizations, the other in nuances. One draws boundaries, the other recognizes no frontiers. Identity politics is made of solid bricks; fiction is flowing water.