The real choice we have to make is between peace and nationalism.

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

I very much enjoy reading other writers' diaries, mainly because it makes me ask myself: Are they like you? How do they think?

Heaven was the place where you kept alive the dreams of your memories.

Ka thought it strangely depressing that the suicide girls had had to struggle to find a private moment to kill themselves. Even after swallowing their pills, even as they lay quietly dying, they’d had to share their rooms with others.

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.

Istanbul is a vast place. There are very conservative neighbourhoods, there are places that are upper class, Westernised, consuming Western culture.