Nothing changed in my life since I work all the time," Pamuk said then. "I've spent 30 years writing fiction. For the first 10 years I worried about money and no one asked me how much money I made. The second decade I spent money and no one was asking me about that. And I've spent the last 10 years with everyone expecting to hear how I spend the money, which I will not do.

As always after drinking too much, I felt like my own ghost trying to take it's first solo walk outside the body.

True literature is more than just a story someone has told. It must provide the reader with the essence of the world on a moral, philosophical and emotional level.

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

Heroic dreams are the consolation of the unhappy. After all, when people like us say we're being heroic, it usually means we're about to kill each other--or kill ourselves.

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

Any intelligent person knows that life is a beautiful thing and that the purpose of life is to be happy," said my father as he watched the three beauties. "But it seems only idiots are ever happy. How can we explain this?