More than anything I am a novelist. But for me, an author's job is not only to create linguistically accomplished works. As an author I also want to stimulate discussion.

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.

Success is messy. But so is life. Deal with it. Poverty is messier.

The unkind words that we said and the unkind deeds that we did will haunt us one day!

A genius is no more—and no less—than someone who insists on the truth, while others face the other way.

When we teach people to run after miracles, we make them helpless.

Well, I used to be a compulsive exerciser, but I'm over that.

My preparation is mainly just knowing the lines and getting in and knowing where your character is, knowing what it's about and having ideas that you can put in on the day.

You know sometimes football turns on the slightest biscuit of good fortune.

Myth is supposed to bring us together, but fantasy alienates us.

You cannot make a revolution with silk gloves.

Above all have respect for yourself.