The thing that binds us together is that we have both lowered our expectations of life

I need a moment of time for myself every day, like a child playing with his things. When I travel, I routinely find a quiet place, open my diary and write something in it.

Books, which we mistake for consolation, only add depth to our sorrow.

Mankind's greatest error, the biggest deception of the past thousand years is this: to confuse poverty with stupidity.

In a brutal country like ours, where human life is 'cheap', it's stupid to destroy yourself for the sake of your beliefs. Beliefs? High ideas? Only people in rich countries can enjoy such luxuries.

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?

It's a great relief for me that no one will ask me anymore: "Orhan, when will you get the Nobel Prize?"