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.

I work seven days a week, from 9 in the morning till 8 at night. I have the titles of the next eight novels I want to write. I feel myself pitiable, degraded on a day that I don't write.

Censorship should never be allowed. One should be able to say anything. But I refuse to let politics be foisted on me.

Novels are political not because writers carry party cards -- some do, I do not -- but because good fiction is about identifying with and understanding people who are not necessarily like us. By nature all good novels are political because identifying with the other is political. At the heart of the 'art of the novel' lies the human capacity to see the world through others' eyes. Compassion is the greatest strength of the novelist.

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

Without patience and the skill of a craftsman, even the greatest talent is wasted.

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