Colour is the touch of the eye, Music to the deaf, A word out of darkness.

Now everyone is prouder and poorer

National consciousness is truly a miraculous thing. When I am not in Turkey I feel even more Turkish than in Istanbul. But when I'm home my European side becomes more apparent.

She looked out the window; in her eyes was the light that you see only in children arriving at a new place, or in young people still open to new influences, still curious about the world because they have not yet been scarred by life.

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.

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

Ka knew very well that life was a meaningless string of random incidents