The fact of being alive compensated for what life did to one.

I determined to make my peace with Islam, even at the cost of my pride. Those who were surprised and displeased by what I did perhaps failed to see that ... I wanted to make peace between the warring halves of the world, which were also the warring halves of my soul.

If Turkey wants to join Europe, it will have to become a European country, and that might take a long time.

The gamble of literature is that I make the best work I can; the most truthful, the most representative of how I see things. I try and do that and then I put it out there and say to you, "What do you think?" I hope that you think well of it, obviously.

She's no flibberti-gibberti mamzell, but a whir-stir-get-lost-sir bundla dynamite!

In the waking dreams our societies permit, in our myths, our arts, our songs, we celebrate the nonbelongers, the different ones, the outlaws, the freaks.

Killing people because you don't like their ideas - it's a bad thing.