Heaven was the place where you kept alive the dreams of your memories.

I don't want to be a tree; I want to be its meaning.

Writing my own diary is the best form of remembrance, but only for my own use. I need these notes; it's like an impulse.

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

I sometimes joke that I am the first writer of historical fiction who can look out his window and point to the objects in his novels. I have a view of the entrance to the Bosporus, the old city, Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque.

Sometimes I would see them not as mementos of the blissful hours but as the tangible precious debris of the storm raging in my soul.

The snow reminded me of the beauty and mystery of creation, of the essential joy that is life.