I think perhaps it is a generational thing. I talk to younger people and they say, Where is this melancholy city you talk about My Istanbul is a sunny place.

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?

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.

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.

Philosophy cannot be taught

What progress, you ask, have I made? I have begun to be a friend to myself.

I'm a big sports fan.

By the very act of arguing, you awake the patient's reason; and once it is awake, who can foresee the result?

A full cup of wine at the right time is worth more than all the kingdoms of this earth!

We talk of the Turks, and abhor the cannibals; but may not some of them, go to heaven, before some of us?

I have kind of an existential crisis. I'm in my late 20s, I get excited by contemporary young culture, but at the same time, I don't want to be the 40-year-old DJ in the club.

If I had a robot friend, he or she would be electric.

When truth kills truth, O devilish holy fray!

I desire you in friendship, and I will one way or other make you amends.