Before my birth there was infinite time, and after my death, inexhaustible time. I never thought of it before: I'd been living luminously between two eternities of darkness.

Life can't be all that bad,' i'd think from time to time. 'Whatever happens, i can always take a long walk along the Bosphorus.

Tell me then, does love make one a fool or do only fools fall in love?

I read a book one day and my whole life was changed.

Dogs do speak, but only to those who know how to listen.

Life is beautiful if you are on the road to somewhere

For if a lover's face survives emblazoned on your heart, the world is still your home.

Happiness is holding someone in your arms and knowing you hold the whole world.

To savour Istanbul's back streets, to appreciate the vines and trees that endow its ruins with accidental grace, you must, first and foremost, be a stranger to them.

After all, a woman who doesn't love cats is never going to be make a man happy.

Love is a sacred silence.

Pity. What a useless emotion when you don't act on it. Pity is supposed to trigger compassion.

But I've been freestyling and messing around with rhyming since I was 13. That's when I really started listening to hip-hop music.

India should walk on her own shadow - we must have our own development model.

Don't ever follow me, because I am difficult.

For the value of everything exists for man only so long as he does not understand it. When he has fully understood, the value is lost, be it the lowest thing or the highest thing.

My agenda is trying to help people live a better life.

The ability to understand people is a choice.

A good principle not rightly understood may prove as hurtful as a bad.

Soon the day will come when science will win victory over error, justice a victory over injustice, and human love a victory over human hatred and ignorance.

I think it's a question which particularly arises over women writers: whether it's better to have a happy life or a good supply of tragic plots.