“Stop running after the waves. Let the sea come to you.”

“The Iron Rule of prudence for an Istanbulite Woman: If you are as fragile as a tea glass, either find a way to never encounter burning water and hope to marry an ideal husband or get yourself laid and broken as soon as possible. Alternatively, stop being a tea-glass woman!”

“I see what you mean. It must be a huge relief, and an easy way out, to think the devil is always outside of us. (…) we would stop looking for Sheitan outside and instead focus on ourselves. What we need is sincere self-examination. Not being on the watch for the faults of others.” (p. 257).”

“Tell me, if you teach someone the alphabet, how can you stop him from reading? When one has tasted the elixir of love, how can she not thirst for it? Once you have seen yourself through your beloved's eyes, you're not the same person any longer. I was blind all this time, and now that my eyes are open, i'm afraid of light. But i don't want to live like a mole. Not anymore.”

“The words that come out of our mouths do not vanish but are perpetually stored in infinite space, and they will come back to us in due time.”

“Every true love and friendship is a story of unexpected transformation. If we are the same person before and after we loved, that means we haven't loved enough.”

“But let us not forget that cities are like human beings. They are born, they go through childhood and adolescence, they grow old, and eventually they die”