For the traveler we see leaning on his neighbor is an honest and well-meaning man and full of melancholy, like those Chekhov characters so laden with virtues that they never know success in life.

I believe strongly in an author's moral responsibility. But his first obligation is to write good books.

Nationalism stems from catastrophes, whether they are caused by earthquakes or lost wars.

How different from the cosy world of Rüya's detective novels, where authors never vexed a hero with more signs than he needed.

Whatever anybody says, the most important thing in life is to be happy.

I am proud to be a Turk, and to write in Turkish about Turkey - and to have been translated into about 40 languages. But I don't want to politicize things by dramatizing them.

What was the difference between love and the agony of waiting? Like love, the agony of waiting began in the muscles and somewhere around the upper belly but soon spread out to the chest, the thighs, and the forehead, to invade the entire body with numbing force.