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

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.

Are you an angel that approaching you should be so terrifying?

No one drives me into exile, not even the nationalists.

Time had not faded my memories (as I had prayed to God it might), nor had it healed my wounds as it is said always to do. I began each day with the hope that the next day would be better, my recollections a little less pointed, but I would awake to the same pain, as if a black lamp were burning eternally inside me, radiating darkness.

Life is beautiful if you are on the road to somewhere

The first thing I learned at school was that some people are idiots; the second thing I learned was that some are even worse.