Istanbul Quotes

I told him just so he wouldn't be fooled by the bright lights of Istanbul into thinking that life was somehow easy. ~ Orhan Pamuk

It should have been the Arabian Nights, but to Bond, seeing it first above the tops of trams and above the great scars of modern advertising along the river frontage, it seemed a once beautiful theatre-set that modern Turkey had thrown aside in favour of the steel and concrete flat-iron of the Istanbul-Hilton Hotel, blankly glittering behind him on the heights of Pera. ~ Ian Fleming

I lost a piece of my heart and my soul with you. I buried the piece in the graveyard stretching from Yedikule to Edirnekapı where trees sustain the lives of the dead Istanbulites. Give love to love; love belongs to love. Remember in the times of roaming mortality on land and sea to take a bite of my apple when you let go of your fears. Scared humans are not alive; they inhibited their souls in the realm of the dead. Is it not funny that fear is supposed to help us survive, but it can make us stop living?! Is there a more dangerous threat than living, feeling alive, feeling full of life? Remember to keep the lines clear so you can have a piece of my apple and a cup of my coffee. ~ Rana Abdulfattah

Wars have been waged over millions of square miles, significantly larger than the British Empire at its peak. Historically, Islamic conquests stretched from southern France to the Philippines, from Austria to Nigeria, and from central Asia to New Guinea. The Muslim goal was to have a central government, first at Damascus, and then at Baghdad, later at Cairo, Istanbul, and other imperial centres. The local governors, judges, and other rulers were appointed by the central imperial authorities for far off colonies. Islamic law was introduced as the senior law, whether or not wanted by the local people. Arabic was introduced as the rulers' language, while the local languages frequently disappeared. Then, two classes of residents were established. The native residents paid a tax that their rulers did not have to pay. In each case, these laws allowed the local conquered people less freedom than was given to Muslims. ~ Anita B. Sulser PhD

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

Nothing beats Istanbul when it comes to street food. The city's sidewalks are a walkable sampler platter. ~ Fuad Alakbarov

She's always telling us that the worst part of the spy life isn't the danger - it's the paperwork. After all, when you're on a plane home from Istanbul with a nuclear warhead in a hatbox, the last thing you want to do is write a report about it. So ~ Ally Carter

After the plates are removed by the silent and swift waiting staff, General Çiller leans forward and says across the table to Güney, 'What's this I'm reading in Hürriyet about Strasbourg breaking up the nation?'
'It's not breaking up the nation. It's a French motion to implement European Regional Directive 8182 which calls for a Kurdish Regional Parliament.'
'And that's not breaking up the nation?' General Çiller throws up his hands in exasperation. He's a big, square man, the model of the military, but he moves freely and lightly 'The French prancing all over the legacy of Atatürk? What do you think, Mr Sarioğlu?'
The trap could not be any more obvious but Ayşe sees Adnan straighten his tie, the code for, Trust me, I know what I'm doing,
'What I think about the legacy of Atatürk, General? Let it go. I don't care. The age of Atatürk is over.'
Guests stiffen around the table, breath subtly indrawn; social gasps. This is heresy. People have been shot down in the streets of Istanbul for less. Adnan commands every eye.
'Atatürk was father of the nation, unquestionably. No Atatürk, no Turkey. But, at some point every child has to leave his father. You have to stand on your own two feet and find out if you're a man. We're like kids that go on about how great their dads are; my dad's the strongest, the best wrestler, the fastest driver, the biggest moustache. And when someone squares up to us, or calls us a name or even looks at us squinty, we run back ~ Ian McDonald

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. ~ Orhan Pamuk

The stories abounded, both recounting these cross-continental journeys and perhaps inspiring them – how Hellenic Jason gathered his Argonauts together (including Augeas, whose vast stables Herakles would be forced to clean) for adventure and profit, how he stopped off along the Bosphorus and discovered the land of the rising sun before other Greek heroes headed to Asia in search of Helen, Troy and glory. In the Homeric epics we hear of Jason travelling east where he tangles with Medea of Colchis, her aunt Circe and the feisty Amazon tribe. Lured by the promise of gold (early and prodigious metalworking did indeed take place in the region – perhaps sparking the Greek idea that the East was 'rich in gold') and then detained by the potions and poisons of Princess Medea, Jason succeeded in penetrating the Caucasus – a land which, in the Greek mind, wept with both peril and promise. It was here that Prometheus was chained to a rock with iron rivets for daring to steal fire from the gods. Archaeology east of Istanbul demonstrates how myth grazes history. ~ Bettany Hughes

Have you ever looked at a map of our country, Necdet?' Green Headscarf says. 'It's a map of the human mind. We're split by water over two continents, Europe and Anatolia. We are seven per cent Europe, ninety-three per cent Asia. Conscious Thrace, unconscious, pre-conscious, sub-concious Anatolia. And Istanbul - have you ever seen a neuron, Necdet? A brain cell? The marvel is that the synapses don't touch. There is always a gap - there must a gap, otherwise consciousness would not exist. The Bosphorus is that synaptic cleft. Potential can flow across the cleft. It's the cleft that makes consciousness possible. ~ Ian McDonald

I've never left Istanbul, never left the houses, streets, and neighborhoods of my childhood. ~ Orhan Pamuk

I've never considered breaking that oath before. Ever. But I did, for you. To keep you safe. Everything--from letting you go at the prom, to tonight at the ball--it's all been for you. As much as I tried to tell myself it was for the Saxons, it wasn't true. As much as I said I was going to Istanbul just for Fitz, it wasn't true. Every second I wasn't with you, I was thinking about you. Worrying about you. It wasn't for them. It was all for you. ~ Maggie Hall

Turks have long admired the sultan, Mehmet II, for his military triumphs, especially his capture of Constantinople, now known as Istanbul, in 1453. ~ Stephen Kinzer

Istanbul these days has as much dynamism as New York. ~ Genco Gulan

To the one in the skies, this city must look like a scintillating pattern of speckled glows in all directions, like a firecracker going off amid thick darkness. Right now the urban pattern glowing here is in hues of orange, ginger, and ochre. It is a configuration of sparkles, each dot a light lit by someone awake at this hour. From where the Celestial Gaze is situated, from that high above, all these sporadically lit bulbs must seem in perfect harmony, constantly flickering, as if coding a cryptic message to God. ~ Elif Shafak

When preparing for a trip, we can read about architecture and restaurants. But what ultimately breathes life into the daydreams of anticipation are the people we encounter when we're actually there, including those we merely pass on the street or, in this case, the stairwell. I thought, too, of the man on the pier who offered his hand to steady me as I stepped off the ferry, and of the old woman in the public restroom who motioned for me to come and share with her the sole tiny sink. The possibility of these wordless interactions, to which we can be particularly attuned when alone, didn't cross my mind when I was anticipating my days in Istanbul. I had envisioned ships and minarets, the Grand Bazaar and the Hagia Sofia, yet not these faces, not these moments that silently transmit the warmth of a city. ~ Stephanie Rosenbloom

A man went to Istanbul, his first visit there. On his way to a business meeting, this man lost his way. He began raging at himself for getting lost, until a realization allowed him to transcend his ire. "How can I be lost? I've never been here before?" pp 104-105 ~ Melody Beattie

Istanbul being a city where houses were not built in accordance with road plans but road plans made so as not to upset the location of the houses. ~ Elif Shafak

I was struck by the ancient, pagan feel of the place. New Orleans doesn't feel like any other American city I've been to. It has an atmosphere like Rome or Istanbul, a sense of the veil being very thin between this world and the world of the fictional and the dead. It is an eerie, haunted, and beautiful place - as any port should be. ~ Craig Ferguson

Water splashes and runs in a film across the glass floor suspended above the mosaics. The Hacı Kadın hamam is a typical post-Union fusion of architectures; Ottoman domes and niches built over some forgotten Byzantine palace, years and decades of trash blinding, gagging, burying the angel-eyed Greek faces in the mosaic floor; century upon century. That haunted face was only exposed to the light again when the builders tore down the cheap apartment blocks and discovered a wonder. But Istanbul is wonder upon wonder, sedimented wonder, metamorphic cross-bedded wonder. You can't plant a row of beans without turning up some saint or Sufi. At some point every country realizes it must eat its history. Romans ate Greeks, Byzantines ate Romans, Ottomans ate Byzantines, Turks ate Ottomans. The EU eats everything. Again, the splash and run as Ferid Bey scoops warm water in a bronze bowl from the marble basin and pours it over his head. ~ Ian McDonald

Istanbul ... the constant beating of the wave of the East against the rock of the West ... ~ Susan Moody

It happened all the time in this city that encompassed seven hills, two continents, three seas and fifteen million mouths. It happened behind closed doors and in open courtyards; in cheap motel rooms and five-star luxury suites; in the midst of the night or plain daylight. The brothels of this city could tell many a story had they only found ears willing to listen. Call girls and rent boys and aged prostitutes beaten, abused and threatened by clients looking for the smallest excuse to lose their temper. Transsexuals who never went to the police for they knew they could be assaulted a second time. Children scared of particular family members and new brides of their fathers- or brothers-in-law; nurses and teachers and secretaries harassed by infatuated lovers just because they had refused to date them in the past; housewives who would never speak a word for there were no words in this culture to describe marital rape. It happened all the time. Canopied under a mantle of secrecy and silence that shamed the victims and shielded the assailants. Istanbul was no stranger to sexual abuse. In this city where everyone feared outsiders, most assaults came from those who were too familiar, too close. ~ Elif Shafak

Weiss' account of the leading role in this campaign to limit Americans' free speech rights played by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the U.S. Department of State is particularly troubling. We learn that Mrs. Clinton collaborated closely with the man who was at the time the Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, through a series of high-level meetings that came to be known as "The Istanbul Process." Its explicit purpose was to find ways to accommodate the OIC's demands for the official stifling of any critical examination of Islam. ~ Deborah Weiss

Vienna didn't invent the coffeehouse. The world's first sprang up in Constantinople (now Istanbul) in 1554, the first Western European one nearly a century later when an enterprising young man named Jacob opened a shop in Oxford, England, that served the "bitter black beverage." From the outset, coffee was considered dangerous. It was known as the "revolutionary drink, ~ Eric Weiner

I ate fantastic Italian food in Croatia, which you wouldn't expect. The food in Istanbul was amazing. I never would've expected that and the food, I guess you're learning something about me, the food in Prague, they're very, very heavy meat eaters, like, a lot of meat, which is great. ~ Cliff Curtis

Peri disliked these dinner parties, which went on late into the night and often left her with a migraine the next day. She would rather stay home and, in the witching hours, be immersed in a novel – reading being her way to connect with the universe. But solitude was a rare privilege in Istanbul. There was always some important event to attend or an urgent social responsibility to fulfil as if the culture, like a child scared of loneliness, made sure everyone was at all times in the company of others. ~ Elif Shafak

As in many other cities, money no longer had any value in Istanbul. At the time I returned from the East, bakeries that once sold large one-hundred drachma loaves of bread for one silver coin now baked loaves half the size for the same price, and they no longer tasted the way they did during my childhood. ~ Orhan Pamuk

Yes, our social and economic circumstances shape decisions we make about all sorts of things in life, including sex. Sometimes they rob us of the power to make any decisions at all. But of all human activity, sex is among the least likely to fit neatly into the blueprint of rational decision making favoured by economists. To quote my friend Claire in Istanbul, sex is about 'conquest, fantasy, projection, infatuation, mood, anger, vanity, love, pissing off your parents, the risk of getting caught, the pleasure of cuddling afterwards, the thrill of having a secret, feeling desirable, feeling like a man, feeling like a woman, bragging to your mates the next day, getting to see what someone looks like naked and a million-and-one-other-things.' When sex isn't fun, it is often lucrative, or part of a bargain which gives you access to something you want or need.

If HIV is spread by 'poverty and gender equality', how come countries that have plenty of both, such as Bangladesh, have virtually no HIV? How come South Africa and Botswana, which have the highest female literacy and per capita incomes in Africa, are awash with HIV, while countries that score low on both - such as Guinea, Somalia, Mali, and Sierra Leone - have epidemics that are negligible by comparison? How come in country after country across Africa itself, from Cameroon to Uganda to Zimbabwe and in a dozen other countries as well, HIV is lowest in the poorest households, and highest in the richest households? ~ Elizabeth Pisani

I like to borrow a metaphor from the great poet and mystic Rumi who talks about living like a drawing compass. One leg of the compass is static. It is fixed and rooted in a certain spot. Meanwhile, the other leg draws a huge wide circle around the first one, constantly moving. Just like that, one part of my writing is based in Istanbul. It has strong local roots. Yet at the same time the other part travels the whole wide world, feeling connected to several cities, cultures, and peoples. ~ Elif Shafak

This Proto-Indo-European term ghosti (from which we get the words guest, host and ghost) referred to a kind of unspoken etiquette, a notion that on seeing strangers on the horizon, rather than choose to fell them with spears or sling-shots, instead we should take the risk of welcoming them across our threshold – on the chance that they might bring new notions, new goods, fresh blood with them.

Over time this word-idea evolved into the Greek xenia – ritualised guest–host friendship, an understanding that stitched together the ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern worlds. ~ Bettany Hughes

We've proved a lot of people wrong so far but the job is not finished yet and if we come home from Istanbul empty handed then it would be a disaster. ~ Steven Gerrard

There are two kinds of cities in the world: those that reassure their residents that tomorrow and the day after, and the day after that, will be much the same; and those that do the opposite, insidiously reminding their inhabitants of life's uncertainty. Istanbul is of the second kind. There is no room for introspection, no time to wait for the clocks to catch up with the pace of events. Istanbulites dart from one breaking news story to the next, moving fast, consuming faster, until something happens that demands their full attention. ~ Elif Shafak

The beauty of a landscape resides in its melancholy. ~ Ahmet Rasim

I see more people taking on the cloak of accountability, more people tiring of the blame game. If we are all connected and our actions in Australia affect us in Istanbul, then we are all to blame and all to be healers. We can't blame lawyers anymore for the 'liability' vs. common sense imbalance. ~ Jane Siberry

I know what kind of man it takes to get involved with something as barbarous as human trafficking."
"I get it, Swopes. He's not the kind of man you take home to meet your
stepmom." I rethought that. "Wait a minute. Maybe my stepmom would like to meet him. Do you think he ships to Istanbul? ~ Darynda Jones

So far I had been travelling alone with my handbook and my Western Railway timetable: I was happiest finding my own way and did not require a liaison man. It had been my intention to stay on the train, without bothering about arriving anywhere: sight-seeing was a way of passing the time, but, as I had concluded in Istanbul, it was an activity very largely based on imaginative invention, like rehearsing your own play in stage sets from which all the actors had fled. ~ Paul Theroux

If the Earth were a single state, Istanbul would be its capital. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte

We spent a month in Japan last year, a week in Istanbul for the United Nations, and nearly three months in my native Nova Scotia, where my two brothers have homes; and we'll go back there this summer. ~ Robert MacNeil

There s a metaphor which I love: living like a drawing compass. As you know, one leg of the compass is static, rooted in a place. Meanwhile, the other leg draws a wide circle, constantly moving. Like that, my fiction as well. One part of it is rooted in Istanbul with strong Turkish roots. But the other part travels the world, connecting to different cultures. ~ Elif Shafak

I amused myself with mental games in which I changed the focus, deceived myself, forgot altogether what had been troubling me or wrapped in a mysterious haze.
We might call this confused, hazy state melancholy, or perhaps we should call it by its Turkish name, hüzün, which denotes a melancholy that is communal rather than private. Offering no clarity; veiling reality instead, hüzün brings us comfort, softening the view like the condensation on a window when a tea kettle has been spouting steam on winters day. Steamed-up windows make me feel hüzün, and I still love getting up and walking over to those windows to trace words on them with my finger. As I trace out words and figures on the steamy window, the hüzün inside me dissipates, and I can relax; after I have done all my writing and drawings, I can erase it all with the back of my hand and look outside. But the view itself can bring its own hüzün. The time has come to move towards a better understanding of this feeling that the city of Istanbul carries as its fate. ~ Orhan Pamuk

Where would you like to go, what would you really like to do with your life?
See Istanbul, Port Said, Nairobi, Budapest. Write a book. Smoke too many cigarettes. Fall off a cliff but get caught in a tree halfway down. Get shot at a few times in a dark alley on a Morrocan midnight. Love a beautiful woman. ~ Ray Bradbury

There is a reason Mary is everywhere. I've seen her image all over the world, in cafés in Istanbul, on students' backpacks in Scotland, in a market stall in Jakarta, but I don't think her image is everywhere because she is a reminder to be obedient, and I don't think it has to do with social revolution. Images of  Mary remind us of  God's favor. Mary is what it looks like to believe that we already are who God says we are. ~ Nadia Bolz-Weber

I'm as constant as Constantinople. Now that's some Istanbul shit. ~ Jarod Kintz

Taking our inspiration from an article on the proper way to walk in a city that appeared recently in the celebrated Parisian magazine Matin, we too should make our feelings clear to people who have yet to learn how to conduct themselves on the streets of Istanbul and tell them, "Don't walk down the street with your mouth open" [1924]. It ~ Orhan Pamuk

The Lumiere brothers first exhibited moving pictures in Paris in 1896. A year later, there was a private showing at the Yildiz palace in Istanbul. ~ Tariq Ali

The terrorists who committed the 2003 Istanbul attacks were locals, that is, Turks. And when filmmaker Theo van Gogh was murdered in the Netherlands last year, the murderer and his supporters were also part of the Muslim community. ~ Otto Schily

As the number and the size of cities keep growing across the world, changing conditions bring shifts in language and vocabulary. Despite the social and linguistic complexity, however, there are only two types of cities: those where a woman can walk after dark relatively freely and those where she possibly cannot. - Elif Shafak, Taksim Square, Istanbul: Byzantine, Then and Now, ~ Catie Marron

I am speaking of the evenings when the sun sets early, of the fathers under the streetlamps in the back streets
returning home carrying plastic bags. Of the old Bosphorus ferries moored to deserted
stations in the middle of winter, where sleepy sailors scrub the decks, pail in hand and one
eye on the black-and-white television in the distance; of the old booksellers who lurch from
one ϧnancial crisis to the next and then wait shivering all day for a customer to appear; of
the barbers who complain that men don't shave as much after an economic crisis; of the
children who play ball between the cars on cobblestoned streets; of the covered women
who stand at remote bus stops clutching plastic shopping bags and speak to no one as they
wait for the bus that never arrives; of the empty boathouses of the old Bosphorus villas; of
the teahouses packed to the rafters with unemployed men; of the patient pimps striding up
and down the city's greatest square on summer evenings in search of one last drunken
tourist; of the broken seesaws in empty parks; of ship horns booming through the fog; of
the wooden buildings whose every board creaked even when they were pashas' mansions,
all the more now that they have become municipal headquarters; of the women peeking
through their curtains as they wait for husbands who never manage to come home in the
evening; of the old men selling thin religious treatises, prayer beads, a ~ Orhan Pamuk

Chicago is constantly auditioning for the world, determined that one day, on the streets of Barcelona, in Berlin's cabarets, in the coffee shops of Istanbul, people will know and love us in our multidimensional glory, dream of us the way they dream of San Francisco and New York. ~ Mary Schmich

If you go to Singapore or Amsterdam or Seoul or Buenos Aires or Islamabad or Johannesburg or Tampa or Istanbul or Kyoto, you'll find that the people differ wildly in the way they dress, in their marriage customs, in the holidays they observe, in their religious rituals, and so on, but they all expect the food to be under lock and key. It's all owned, and if you want some, you'll have to buy it. ~ Daniel Quinn

It would take me all night to tell about Old Bull Lee; let's just say now, he was a teacher, and it may be said that he had every right to teach because he spent all his time learning; and the things he learned were what he considered to be and called "the facts of life," which he learned, not only out of necessity but because he wanted to. He dragged his long, thin body around the entire United States and most of Europe and North Africa in his time, only to see what was going on.... there are pictures of him with the international cocaine set of the thirties - gangs with wild hair, leaning on one another, there are other pictures of him in a Panama hat, surveying the streets of Algiers.... He was an exterminator in Chicago, a bartender in New York, a summons-server in Newark. In Paris he sat at cafe tables, watching the sullen French faces go by. In Athens he looked up from his ouzo at what he called the ugliest people in the world. In Istanbul he threaded his way through crowds of opium addicts and rug-sellers, looking for the facts. In Chicago he planned to hold up a Turkish bath, hesitated just for two minutes too long for a drink, and, wound up with two dollars and had to make a run for it. He did all these things merely for the experience.... ~ Jack Kerouac

I do rather like birds,' Abdullah Unul says. 'They're busy, active little things. They make do. Have you ever thought, if Istanbul were to have an official bird, what would it be? I bet you'd think stork straight away. Maybe a sparrow. Me, the official bird of Istanbul would have to be the seagull. What do you see dancing around the Ramazan lights, what' s following the ships up and down the Bosphorus, what's facing into the wind on the rocks down by the water side. The common or garden gull, that's what. For all those reasons, the seagull for me is Istanbul, but mostly because it practises kleptoparasitism. You may not have heard of that. I'll explain. It's a behaviour when one animal takes prey from another that has the job of catching or killing it. In seagulls it's letting some other bird do all the hard work of catching the fish or a bit of bread and then taking it off them as they're about to eat it. It's the reason they're the success they are. So, I'll have that Koran. Both parts. To be honest, I'd prefer cash, but I imagine there's a market for that gadgetry you have out there in Fenerbahçe. ~ Ian McDonald

Its Vermeer"
Kat turned to the boy who lingered in the doorway. "It's stolen"
"What can I say?" Hale eased behind her and studied the painting over her shoulder. "I met a very nice man who bet me he had the best security system in Istanbul." His breath was warm on the back of her neck. "He was mistaken. ~ Ally Carter

The great trains are going out all over Europe, one by one, but still, three times a week, the Orient Express thunders superbly over the 1,400 miles of glittering steel track between Istanbul and Paris.
Under the arc-lights, the long-chassied German locomotive panted quietly with the labored breath of a dragon dying of asthma. Each heavy breath seemed certain to be the last. Then came another. ~ Ian Fleming

He was one of the masters of the thriller and he really was one of the great signposts, because he took the spy thriller out of the gentility of the drawing room and into the back streets of Istanbul and where it all really happened, ... The Day of the Jackal. ~ Frederick Forsyth

Either I conquer Istanbul or Istanbul conquers me. ~ Mehmed The Conqueror

With the engine stalled, we would notice the deep silence reigning in the park around us, in the summer villa before us, in the world everywhere. We would listen enchanted to the whirring of an insect beginning vernal flight before the onset of spring, and we would know what a wondrous thing it was to be alive in a park on a spring day in Istanbul. ~ Orhan Pamuk

There are three types of buildings in Istanbul, he used to say: (1) those full of devout families where people say their daily prayers and leave their shoes outside, (2) rich and Westernized homes where you can go in with your shoes on, (3) new high-rise blocks where you can find a mix of both sorts. ~ Orhan Pamuk

To paraphrase a Latino saying (which is possibly ultimately from the Arabic traditiom), MI rasa is supposed raza." So Living in Spanglish is not a racial Istanbul text. ~ Ed Morales

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. ~ Orhan Pamuk

From the first, Istanbul had given him the impression of a town where, with the night, horror creeps out of the stones. It seemed to him a town the centuries had so drenched in blood and violence that, when daylight went out, the ghosts of its dead were its only population. ~ Ian Fleming

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. ~ Orhan Pamuk

How terrible it was to still be mentally and emotionally attached to someone from whom you have been physically separated. ~ Elif Shafak

..These exhibitions, and the stories behind them, should also in due course have their own catalogs and novels. As visitors admire the objects and honor the memory of Füsun and Kemal, with due reverence, they will understand that, like the tales of Leyla and Mecnun or Hüsn and Așk, this is not simply a story of lovers, but of the entire realm, that is, of Istanbul. ~ Orhan Pamuk

The kind of power mothers have is enormous. ~ Angela Carter

It is said that in those days one could hear seventy languages in the streets of Istanbul. The vast Ottoman Empire, shrunken and weakened though it now was, had made it normal and natural for Greeks to inhabit Egypt, Persians to settle in Arabia and Albanians to live with Slavs. Christians and Muslims of all sects, Alevis, Zoroastrians, Jews, worshippers of the Peacock Angel, subsisted side by side in the most improbable places and combinations. There were Muslim Greeks, Catholic Armenians, Arab Christians and Serbian Jews. Istanbul was the hub of this broken-felloed wheel, and there could be found epitomised the fantastical bedlam and babel, which although no one realised it at the time, was destined to be the model and precursor of all the world's great metropoles a hundred years hence, by which time Istanbul itself would, paradoxically, have lost its cosmopolitan brilliance entirely. It would be destined, perhaps, one day to find it again, if only the devilish false idols of nationalism, that specious patriotism of the morally stunted, might finally be toppled in the century to come. ~ Louis De Bernieres

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. ~ Orhan Pamuk

I am listening to Istanbul with my eyes closed
The drunkenness of old times
In the wooden seaside villa with its deserted boat house
The roaring Southwestern wind is trapped,
My thoughts are trapped.
I am listening to Istanbul with my eyes closed
A bird is flying around your skirt
I know if your forehead is hot or cold
Or your lips are wet or dry;
Or is a white moon is rising above the hazelnut tree
My heart's fluttering tells me
I am listening to Istanbul with my eyes closed ~ Orhan Veli Kanik

It was in Cihangir that i first learned Istanbul was not an anonymous multitude of walled-in lives - a jungle of apartments where no one knew who was dead or who was celebrating what - but an archipelago of neighbourhoods in which everyone knew each other. ~ Orhan Pamuk

Istanbul owes its extraordinary situation to Golden Horn, Marmara Sea and The Bosphorus. ~ Edmondo De Amicis

However, the new Istanbul would not be a closed off society built on strict religious grounds. Influence from Middle Eastern kingdoms during that time did not spell cultural collapse, but usually the opposite, as historically the old Islamic empires were known for preservation of antiquities and a push toward topics like science, mathematics, and education. Although initially Constantinople was a ransacked, broken city, it would gradually turn into a new cultural center, where even former enemies (Christians) were allowed to re-enter and live among Muslims (although they were taxed for their faith). ~ Ayaz Babacan

If one had but a single glance to give the world, one should gaze on Istanbul. ~ Alphonse De Lamartine

Trip Advisor: Travel the World with Haiku [D]
Jerusalem, Israel
Jews pray motionless
and the Western Wall shakes.
It's all relative.

Capetown, South Africa
And the coloured girls say,
'We're not Africaans, we're English.'
In a total Africaans accent.

Bulls Bay, Jamaica
Weed, rum, guava jelly,
Reggae, Marley, Red Stripe beer,
O Baby, jerk that chicken.

Istanbul, Turkey
I asked my driver,
'Why do you believe in Allah?'
He answers: 'If not, He hit me!'

Cairo, Egypt
Cairo International Airport,
Porter drops my bags six times.
Descendents of the Pharaohs, my ass.

Santorini Island, Greece
Greeks are like the current,
They push you over and then
Try to suck you in.

Christiania, Denmark
One thousand drug dealers,
Five hundred thousand tourists.
Alway$ Chri$tma$ here.* ~ Beryl Dov

It was an ordinary spring day in Istanbul, a long and leaden afternoon like so many others, when she discovered, with a hollowness in her stomach, that she was capable of killing someone. ~ Elif Shafak

I have been on dialysis in Istanbul, Milan, Indonesia, Manila, London. It's - it's amazing. ~ Natalie Cole

The difference lies in the fact that in Istanbul the remains of a glorious past civilization are everywhere visible. No matter how ill-kept, no matter how neglected or hemmed in they are by concrete monstrosities, the great mosques and other monuments of the city, as well as the lesser detritus of empire in every side street and corner - the little arches, fountains, and neighborhood mosques - inflict heartache on all who live among them. These ~ Orhan Pamuk

Coffee was first introduced by Yemeni Muslims. When Ottoman Empire grew, coffee spread to Istanbul and from there to the rest of Europe. ~ Firas Alkhateeb

I once stayed in a roach-infested hotel in Istanbul for a work trip. I had to share my room with a male model, and pointedly all we talked about was our other halves. ~ Jasmine Guinness

I once left Istanbul in the purse of a preacher from Edirne who was going to Manisa. On the way, we happened to be attacked by thieves. One of them shouted, "Your money or your life!" Panicking, the miserable preacher hid us in his asshole. This spot, which he assumed was the safest, smelled worse than the mouth of the garlic lover and was much less comfortable. But the situation quickly grew worse when instead of "Your money or your life!" the thieves began to shout "Your honor or your life!" Lining up, they took him by turns. I don't dare describe the agony we suffered in that cramped hole. It's for this reason that I dislike leaving Istanbul.

(~I am a gold coin) ~ Orhan Pamuk

We had no desire to live in Istanbul, nor in Paris or New York. Let them have their discos and dollars, their skycrapers and supersonics transports. Let them have their radios and their color TV, hey, we have ours, don't we? But we have something they don't have. Heart. We have heart. Look, look how the light of life seeps into my very heart ~ Orhan Pamuk

I had a real revelation. We were all in robes, and they made some Turkish coffee for us. The professor explained how the coffee was made very different from anywhere else, and I realized, 'So fucking what?' Which kids even in Turkey give a shit about Turkish coffee? All day I had looked at young people in Istanbul. They were all drinking what every other kind in the world drinks, and they were wearing clothes that look like they were bought at the Gap, and they are all using cell phones. They were like kids everywhere else. It hit me that, for young people, this whole world is the same now. When we're making products, there is no such thing as a Turkish phone, or a music player that young people in Turkey would want that's different from one young people elsewhere would want. We're just one world now. ~ Walter Isaacson

In Istanbul I met a man who said he knew beyond a doubt that God was a cat. I asked why he was so sure, and the man said, "When I pray to him, he ignores me." ~ Lowell Thomas

I came across humanity in Istanbul, and all I know about life comes from Istanbul, and definitely, I am writing about Istanbul. I also love the city because I live there, it has formed me, and it's me. Of course it is natural. If somebody lived all his life in Delhi, he will write about Delhi. ~ Orhan Pamuk

I read, read enormously on all different fields of Islamic thought, from philosophy to Islamic literature, poetry, exegeses, knowledge of the Hadith, the teachings of the prophet. That's how I trained myself. And then I was appointed imam by a Sufi master from Istanbul, Turkey. ~ Feisal Abdul Rauf