The real question is how much suffering we've caused our womenfolk by turning headscarves into symbols - and using women as pawns in a political game.

Writing my own diary is the best form of remembrance, but only for my own use. I need these notes; it's like an impulse.

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

My religion is complicated. Literature is my true religion. After all, I come from a completely non-religious family.

What is love?” “I don’t know.” “Love is the name given to the bond Kemal feels with Füsun whenever they travel along highways or sidewalks; visit houses, gardens, or rooms; or whenever he watches her sitting in tea gardens and restaurants, and at dinner tables.” “Hmmm … that’s a lovely answer,~ But isn’t love what you feel when you can’t see me?” “Under those circumstances, it becomes a terrible obsession, an illness.

The bloody years of war and all the atrocities in European history have taught the Europeans that secular politics free of religious hatred is mainly a question of peace. This concept is not anchored in the same way in the consciousness of Turks, which has to do with the fact that the secular was forced upon us by the army.

Ka knew very well that life was a meaningless string of random incidents