It's a great relief for me that no one will ask me anymore: "Orhan, when will you get the Nobel Prize?"

When another writer in another house is not free, no writer is free.

Try to discover who I am from my choice of words and colors, as attentive people like yourselves might examine footprints to catch a thief.

Morality is probably the last thing one can learn from football.

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.

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

I don't want to be a tree; I want to be its meaning.