It's such a shame that we know so little about our own country, that we can't find it in our hearts to love our own kind. Instead we admire those who show our country disrespect and betray its people.

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.

Yet does illustrating in a new way signify a new way of seeing?

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.

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.

When you love a city and have explored it frequently on foot, your body, not to mention your soul, gets to know the streets so well after a number of years that in a fit of melancholy, perhaps stirred by a light snow falling ever so sorrowfully, you'll discover your legs carrying you of their own accord toward one of your favourite promontories

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.