“To have what you want is Riches,But to be able to do without is Power.”

“It is by loving and not by being loved, that one can come nearest to the soul of another.”

“We love the idea of transformation, so we can make ourselves something more than just ordinary. It's why you're doing this, isn't it?" she asked. "You don't want to settle for what you are; you want to be more. You want to win.”

“When you look in the mirror, what do you want to see: yet another reminder of your hopeless attempt to be the girl of his dreams, or you? The answer should always be you.”

“It's your life. If you don't make it so that you get what you want, nobody else will.”

“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.”

“He's never fought with religion; what is the point of railing against such beauty, such intimate theatre, such chime of eternity? He can treasure it without believing in it.”