I identify with my culture, but I am happy to be living on a tolerant, intellectual island where I can deal with Dostoyevsky and Sartre, both great influences for me.

Whatever anybody says, the most important thing in life is to be happy.

For if a lover's face survives emblazoned on your heart, the world is still your home.

We're not stupid! We're just poor! And we have a right to insist on this distinction

I think perhaps it is a generational thing. I talk to younger people and they say, Where is this melancholy city you talk about My Istanbul is a sunny place.

I believe strongly in an author's moral responsibility. But his first obligation is to write good books.

For the traveler we see leaning on his neighbor is an honest and well-meaning man and full of melancholy, like those Chekhov characters so laden with virtues that they never know success in life.