Where there is true art and genuine virtuosity the artist can paint an incomparable masterpiece without leaving even a trace of his identity.

After all, isn't the purpose of the novel, or of a museum, for that matter, to relate our memories with such sincerity as to transform individual happiness into a happiness all can share?

Before my birth there was infinite time, and after my death, inexhaustible time. I never thought of it before: I'd been living luminously between two eternities of darkness.

I very much enjoy reading other writers' diaries, mainly because it makes me ask myself: Are they like you? How do they think?

Hüzün does not just paralyze the inhabitants of Instanbul, it also gives them poetic license to be paralyzed.

People only tell lies when there is something they are terribly frightened of losing.

I don’t like to make strong statements. I want to write strong novels … I keep my deep radical things for my novels.