I really don't want to portray the Islamists as simply evil, the way it's often done in the west.

I need the pain of loneliness to make my imagination work.

After all, isn't the purpose of the novel, or of a museum, for that matter, to relate our memories with such sincerity as to transform individual happiness into a happiness all can share?

My childhood proved to me that there could be no enjoyment of football without community. But it becomes difficult when this community is having problems with its identity. That's when we experience all possible forms of nationalist exaggeration.

The gap between compassion and surrender is love’s darkest, deepest region.

I think perhaps it is a generational thing. I talk to younger people and they say, Where is this melancholy city you talk about My Istanbul is a sunny place.

Real museums are places where Time is transformed into Space.