Actually, it's the other way round. In a poor country, the only consolation people can have is the one that comes from their beliefs.

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.

A writer in someone who spends years patiently trying to discover the second being inside him, and the world that makes him who he is.

I have hired a bodyguard, on the recommendation of my friends and the government. It's outrageous, having to live like this.

How much can we ever know about the love and pain in another's heart? How much can we hope to understand those who have suffered deeper anguish, greater deprivation, and more crushing disappointments than we ourselves have known? Even if the world's rich and powerful were to put themselves in the shoes of the rest, how much would they really understand the wretched millions suffering around them? So it is when Orhan the novelist peers into the dark corners of his poet friend's difficult and painful life: How much can he really see?

East and West are coming together. Whether in peace or anarchy - they are coming together. There needn't be a clash between East and West, between Islam and Europe.

I believe that it isn't victories but defeats that promote nationalism.