She looked out the window; in her eyes was the light that you see only in children arriving at a new place, or in young people still open to new influences, still curious about the world because they have not yet been scarred by life.

There's been quite a clear upswing in nationalist sentiments. Everyone is talking about it, in Turkey as well.

Over time, I have come to see the work of literature less as narrating the world than "seeing the world with words." From the moment he begins to use words like colors in a painting, a writer can begin to see how wondrous and surprising the world is, and he breaks the bones of language to find his own voice. For this he needs paper, a pen, and the optimism of a child looking at the world for the first time.

Painting taught literature to describe.

Football can teach us that although a team's individual players may be weak, it can still be successful if it uses common sense. Or that we should not attack anyone physically when we suffer a depressing defeat.

I want to describe the psychological state of the people in a certain city.

Sometimes I would see them not as mementos of the blissful hours but as the tangible precious debris of the storm raging in my soul.