I came like Water, and like Wind I go.

The value of three things is justly appreciated by all classes of men: youth, by the old; health, by the diseased; and wealth, by the needy.

I have not asked for life. But I try to accept whatever life brings without surprise. And I shall depart again without having questioned anyone about my strange stay here on earth.

I sent my Soul through the Invisible, Some letter of that After-life to spell: And by and by my Soul return'd to me, And answer'd: 'I Myself am Heav'n and Hell

To be free of belief and unbelief is my religion.

The moving finger writes, and having written moves on. Nor all thy piety nor all thy wit, can cancel half a line of it.

Drink wine. This is life eternal. This is all that youth will give you. It is the season for wine, roses and drunken friends. Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.

Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.

To wisely live your life, you don't need to know much Just rememeber two main rules for the beginning: You better starve, than eat whatever And better be alone, than with whoever.

It’s too bad if a heart lacks fire, and is deprived of the light of a heart ablaze. The day on which you are without passionate love is the most wasted day of your life.

Don't cry upon you losses Don't mesure today with tommorows Don't trust to passed and coming day Believe in now - and be happy today.

As far as you can avoid it, do not give grief to anyone. Never inflict your rage on another. If you hope for eternal rest, feel the pain yourself; but don’t hurt others.

Men talk of heaven, - there is no heaven but here; Men talk of hell, - there is no hell but here; Men of hereafters talk and future lives, - O love, there is no other life - but here.

How sad, a heart that does not know how to love, that does not know what it is to be drunk with love. If you are not in love, how can you enjoy the blinding light of the sun, the soft light of the moon?

Old Khayyám, say you, is a debauchee;If only you were half so good as he!He sins no sins but gentle drunkenness,Great-hearted mirth, and kind adultery.But yours the cold heart, and the murderous tongue,The wintry soul that hates to hear a song,The close-shut fist, the mean and measuring eye,And all the little poisoned ways of wrong.

Realise this: one day your soul will depart from your body and you will be drawn behind the curtain that floats between us and the unknown. While you wait for that moment, be happy, because you don't know where you came from and you don't know where you will be going.

We are thinking about bad only those who are worse than we are, and those who are better than us ... I'm just not up to us ... One does not follow it than smell roses. Another of the bitter herbs will produce honey. Give bread to one - will remember forever. Another life donation - do not understand ...

How much more of the mosque, of prayer and fasting? Better go drunk and begging round the taverns. Khayyam, drink wine, for soon this clay of yours Will make a cup, bowl, one day a jar. When once you hear the roses are in bloom, Then is the time, my love, to pour the wine; Houris and palaces and Heaven and Hell- These are but fairy-tales, forget them all.

When you are so full of sorrow that you can't walk, can't cry anymore, think about the green foliage that sparkles after the rain. When the daylight exhausts you, when you hope a final night will cover the world, think about the awakening of a young child.

You've seen the world, and all you've seen is nothing; and everything, as well, that you have said and heard is nothing. You've sprinted everywhere between here and the horizon; it is nothing. And all the possessions you've treasured up at home are nothing.

I read a book one day and my whole life was changed.

Happiness is holding someone in your arms and knowing you hold the whole world.

Life is short, and we should respect every moment of it.

Oscar Wilde always makes me smile - with respect and admiration. His short stories prove that it is possible to be both sarcastic, even cynical, but deeply compassionate. Just seeing the cover of one of Wilde's books in a bookshop makes me smile.

Culture is mix. Culture means a mix of things from other sources. And my town, Istanbul, was this kind of mix. Istanbul, in fact, and my work, is a testimony to the fact that East and West combine cultural gracefully, or sometimes in an anarchic way, came together, and that is what we should search for.

I don't much care whether rural Anatolians or Istanbul secularists take power. I'm not close to any of them. What I care about is respect for the individual.

Istanbul is a vast place. There are very conservative neighbourhoods, there are places that are upper class, Westernised, consuming Western culture.

I had the feeling that focusing on objects and telling a story through them would make my protagonists different from those in Western novels - more real, more quintessentially of Istanbul.

Being a fiction writer makes you someone who works with irresponsibility.

The fueling of anti-Turkish sentiment in Europe is resulting in an anti-European, indiscriminate nationalism in Turkey.

The secularists in Turkey haven't underestimated religion, they just made the mistake of believing they could control it with the power of the army alone.

I consider myself Istanbul's storyteller. My subject matter is my town. I consider it my job to explore the hidden patterns of my city's clandestine corners, its shady, mysterious places, the things I love.

From a very young age, I suspected there was more to my world than I could see: somewhere in the streets of Istanbul, in a house resembling ours, there lived another Orhan so much like me he could pass for my twin, even my double.

There's been quite a clear upswing in nationalist sentiments. Everyone is talking about it, in Turkey as well.

When I paint, I definitely live in the present, like someone in a shower whistling or singing.

When the whole world reads your books, is there any other happiness for a writer? I am happy that my books are read in 57 languages. But I am focused on Istanbul not because of Istanbul but because of humanity. Everyone is the same in the end.

I write because I have an innate need to. I write because I can't do normal work. I write because I want to read books like the ones I write. I write because I am angry at everyone. I write because I love sitting in a room all day writing. I write because I can partake of real life only by changing it.

Modernity means overabundance. We are living in the age of mass-produced objects, things that come without announcing themselves and end up on our tables, on our walls. We use them - most of us don't even notice them - and then they vanish without fanfare.

I really don't want to portray the Islamists as simply evil, the way it's often done in the west.

My hero wants to belong too, but he doesn't want to give up all the things he came to value in the west.

The hero of the book does long to experience God. But his conception of God is very western.

The challenge is to lend conviction even to the voices which advocate views I find personally abhorrent, whether they are political Islamists or officers justifying a coup.

I see Turkey's future as being in Europe, as one of many prosperous, tolerant, democratic countries.

These political movements flourish on the margins of Turkish society because of poverty and because of the people's feeling that they are not being represented.

The opponents of this process have always tried to vilify westernization as a poor imitation.

Well, on the one hand the Turks have the legitimate need to defend their national dignity - and this includes being recognized as a part of the west and Europe.

At first my publisher had reservations about publishing it in the form you are familiar with.

I want to describe the psychological state of the people in a certain city.

One side of me is very busy paying attention to the details of life, the humanity of people, catching the street voices, the middle-class, upper-middle-class secret lives of Turks. The other side is interested in history and class and gender, trying to get all of society in a very realistic way.

I wanted to tell a romantic and dark side of Ottoman history that was also slightly political, saying to the previous generation of writers, 'Look, I'm interested in Ottoman things, and I'm not afraid of it, and I'm doing something creative.'