Bastard Of Istanbul Quotes

You see, unlike in the movies, there is no THE END sign flashing at the end of books. When I've read a book, I don't feel like I've finished anything. So I start a new one.

إذا لم تتمكني من إيجاد سبب كي تحبي الحياة التي تعيشينها، فلا تتظاهري بأنك تحبين الحياة التي تعيشينها

Either grant me the bliss of the ignorant or give me the strength to bear the knowledge.

Perhaps this is why lunatics have a harder time dating, not because they are off the wall but because it is hard to find soemone who is willing to date so many people in one person.

Because time is a drop in the ocean, and you cannot measure off one drop against another to see which one is bigger, which one is smaller.

إن الروح بحاجة لأن ترتعش لكي تستيقظ

The past lives within the present, and our ancestors breathe through our children.

إن الأغلبية الساحقة من الناس لا يفكرون مطلقاً، و الذين يفكرون لا يصبحون الأغلبية الساحقة أبداً، فاختاري في أي فئة تريدين أن تكوني

Mourning is like virginity. You should give it to the one who deserves it most.

علي عكس ما يحدث في الأفلام، فإن اشارة النهاية" لا تومض في نهاية الكتاب، فعندما أقرأ كتاباً، لا أشعر بأنني أنهيت أي شيء. لذلك فأنا أبدأ كتاباً جديداً

Imagination was a dangerously captivating magic for those compelled to be realistic in life, and words could be poisonous for those destined always to be silenced.

Article Five: If you have no reason or ability to accomplish anything, then just practice the art of becoming.

لا أستطيع تغيير اتجاه الريح لكني استطيع أن أعدل أشرعتي كي أصل إلى غايتي

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!

كل شيء يتوقف على موقفك إزاء الأمور. فإن كنت تبحث عن وحيد القرن الأرجواني اللون, فلن تستغرق وقتاً طويلاً حتى تبدأ في رؤيته في كل مكان.

لا يجوز أن تلعن أي شيء يهطل من السماء.. حتى لو كان مطرا

قد لا يعجبك المطر, وليس بالضرورة أن يعجبك

لم تكن عبارة " أوصى لي به كثيرون" معياراً جيداً, و خاصةلأنها كانت تحذر دائماً من عبارة أكثر الكتب مبيعاً التي " يوصي بقراءتها كثيرون".

It never took her long to darken any conversation, as from birth she was inclined to see misery in each and every story, and to fabricate some when there was none.

That was the one thing about the rain that likened it to sorrow: You did your best to remain untouched, safe and dry, but if and when you failed, there came a point in which you started seeing the problem less in terms of drops than as an incessant gush, and thereby you decide you might as well get drenched.

That is why we can suicidally fall in love with others but can rarely reciprocate the love of those suicidally in love with us.

فعندما لا تفضي لأحد بشيء استثنائي، فأنه سيعتبر أن كل شيء يسير علي ما يرام

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

لكنها كانت واثقة من أنها لا تستطيع أن تعرف حدودها إلا عندما تتجاوزها

We're stuck. We're stuck between the East and the West. Between the past and the future. On the one hand there are the secular modernists, so proud of the regime they constructed, you cannot breathe a critical word. They've got the army and half of the state on their side. On the other hand there are the conventional traditionalist, so infatuated with the Ottoman past, you cannot breathe a critical word. They've got the general public and the remaining half of the state on their side.

There is no together anymore. Once a pomegranate breaks and all its seeds scatter in differetnt directions, you cannot put it back together.

We cannot abandon this rabbit hole for fear of a traumatic encounter with our own culture.

It is so demanding to be born into a house full of women, where everyone loves you so overwhelmingly that they end up suffocating with their love; a house where you, as the only child, have to be more mature than all the adults around.... But the problem is that they want me to become everything they themselves couldn't accomplish in life..... As a result, I had to work my butt off to fulfill all their dreams at the same time.

Ways of loving from a distance, mating without even touching-Amor platonicus! The ladder of love one is expected to climb higher and higher, elating the Self and the Other. Plato clearly regards any actual physical contact as corrupt and ignoble because he thinks the true goal of Eros is beauty. Is there no beauty in sex? Not according to Plato. He is after `more sublime pursuits.' But if you ask me, I think Plato's problem, like those of many others, was that he never got splendidly laid.

كان الأمر بتلك الدرجة من السوء, مثل أن تخسر جائزة اليانصيب الكبرى بسبب اختلاف رقم واحد فقط.

If you have no reason or ability to accomplish anything, then practice the art of becoming. If you have no reason or ability to practice the art of becoming, then just be. If you don't have any reason or ability to just be, then endure.

once there was, once there wasn't, God's creature were as plentiful as grains and talking too much was a sin.

...when women survive an awful marriage or love affair, and all that shit, they generally avoid another relationship for quite some time. With men, however, it is just the opposite; the moment they finish a catastrophe they start looking for another one. Men are incapable of being alone.

الحياة مجرد مصادفات مع ان الامر يحتاج الى جني لكي يتسوعب هذا اامر

Don't underestimate the good in you

Yeah, we should all line up along the Bosphorus Bridge and puff as hard as we can to shove this city in the direction of the West. If that doesn't work, we'll try the other way, see if we can veer to the East. It's no good to be in between. International politics does not appreciate ambiguity.

Was it really better for human beings to discover more of their pasts? And then more and more...? Or was it simply better to know as little of the past as possible and even to forget what small amount was remembered?

From her he had learned two fundamental things about love: first, that unlike what the romantics so pompously argued, love was more a gradual course than a sudden blossoming at first sight, and second, that he was capable of loving.

Don't forget that your mind is a stranger at nights. Don't talk to strangers.

There was something in the color white that resembled silence. Both were emptied of life.

لكن ألا تظنين أنه يوجد فرق كبير بين الجنسين عندما يتعلق الأمر بالشفاء من علاقة حبّ؟ أقصد عندما تخرج المرأة من زواج أو من علاقة حبّ فاشلة، و كل هذا الخراء، فهي تتجنب عادة أن تقيم علاقة أخرى لفترة من الزمن. أما الرجل، فهو على عكس ذلك تمامًا. فما إن يخرج أحدهم من كارثة حتى يبدأ مسيرة البحث عن أخرى. إن الرجل لا يستطيع أن يعيش وحيدًا.

It is a scientifically known fact that collectivities are capable of manipulating their individual members’ beliefs, thoughts, and even bodily reactions. You keep hearing a certain story over and over again, and the next thing you know you have internalized the narrative. From that moment on it ceases to be someone else’s story. It is not even a story anymore, but reality, your reality!

The past is anything but bygone

How amazing was this ability to achieve plenty by achieving little, to go home empty-handed yet still satisfied at the end of the day!

Don't call me wretched! it declared. the wretched too have a heart لا تقل أني بائس. فللبوئساء قلوب أيضا.

وفي رأيها، فإن أي شخص لا يستطيع أن ينهض ويتمرد، أي شخص لا يتمتع بالقدرة على أن يعارض، لا يمكنه أن يقول إنه يعيش حقًا. ففي المقاومة يقبع سرّ الحياة.

فما فائدة المعرفة إن لم يكن بإمكانك أن تغير شيئاً؟! إنها سم تجعلك عاجزاً طوال حياتك. فلا تستطيع أن تلفظها خارجاً، ولا تستطيع أن تموت!!

كانت تريد حباً يستغرق كيانها إلى حد أن يعتنق مخاوفها الكثيرة أطوارها الغريبة وانحرافاتها . وحبيب يعشق كل شيء فيها لم تكن تريد حباً لجانبها الطيب ويتجنب جانبها المظلم بل كانت بحاجة إلى شخص يستطيع أن يقف إلى جانبها في السراء والضراء في رشدها وجنونها . وربما لهذا السبب يجد المجانين صعوبة في الالتقاء بشخص تقول لنفسها: لا لأنهم مختلفون بل لأنه يصعب العثور على شخص يريد أن يلتقي بعدة أشخاص مجتمعين في شخص واحد

Si no le cuentas a nadie lo extraordinario, todo el mundo supone que es normal.

...for love loves power. That is why we can suicidally fall in love with others but can rarely reciprocate the love of those suicidally in love with us.

Article Two: The overwhelming majority of people never think and those who think never become the overwhelming majority. Choose your side.

I know every single street in this town. And I love strolling these streets in the mornings, in the evenings, and then at night when I am merry and tipsy. I love to have breakfasts with my friends along the Bosphorus on Sundays, I love to walk alone amid the crowds. I am in love with the chaotic beauty of this city, the ferries, the music, the tales, the sadness, the colors, and the black humor.....

Since when is being a rotten drunkard a symbol of freedom?

Neredeyse safak vaktiydi, geceyle gunduz arasindaki o tekinsiz esige ramak kala. Hala mumkun avuntu bulmak ruyalarda ama onlari silbastan insa etmek icin artik cok gec.

Животът е съвпадение ...

In resistance lies the key to life

My friend, wake up, there is no together anymore. Once a pomegranate breaks and all its seeds scatter in different directions, you cannot put it back together.

she yearned for success in multiple tasks in life and ended up accomplishing none.

Family stories intermingle in such ways that what happened generations ago can have an impact on seemingly irrelevant developments of the present day. The past is anything but bygone.

لقد أصبحت الشوارع ملكهم، الساحات لهم، العبّارات لهم. لقد أصبحت جميع المناطق المفتوحة لهم. و بعد بضع سنوات، ربما لن يعود لنا مكان نلجأ إليه سوى هذا المقهى. منطقتنا المحررة الأخيرة. إننا نهرع إلى هنا كلّ يوم هرباً منهم. أوه نعم، هم! فليحفظني الله من شعبي.

إن الزهايمر ليس فظيعاً إلى هذه الدرجة. فالماضي ليس سوى قيد يجب أن نتخلص منه. إنه عبء ثقيل مبرّح. كم أتمنى ألا يكون لديّ ماض، كم أتمنى ألا أكون أحداً، وأن أبدأ من نقطة الصفر وأبقى هناك حتى الأبد.

If you couldn't help harboring higher aspirations in life, you should at least harbor only simple desires, reduced in passion and ambition, as if you had been de-generized and now had only enough strength to be average".

Help me out of this dilemma. Either grant me the bliss of the ignorant or give me the strength to bear the knowledge. Whichever you choose shall make me grateful, but please don't make me powerless and knowledgeable at the same time

To her way of thinking, anyone who can't rise up and rebel, anyone devoid of the ability to dissent, cannot really be said to be alive. In resistance lies the key to life. The rest of the people fall into two camps: the vegetables, who are fine with everything, and the tea glasses, who, thought not fine with numerous things, lack the strength to confront. It is the latter that are the worse of the two.

Sanity was a promised land, the Shangri-la she had been deported from as a teenager, and to which she intended to return to one day.

And were you able to find Him?" I inquired. A shadow crossed his face as the dervish noded and said. "Indeed, He was with me all along.

If you cannot find a reason to love the life you are living, do not pretend to love the life you are living.

When you didn’t tell anyone the extraordinary, everyone assumed the normal,

there are times when we all need the company of the bad,

Johnny Cash and existential philosophy, they both probe the human soul to see what’s inside, and unhappy with their findings, they both leave it open!

Elle avait ce regard franc qui suggérait qu'elle était capable de comprendre les gens sans les juger.

لا يجوز أن تلعن أي شيء يهطل من السماء.. حتى لو كان مطرا

Как да се справи с добротата на любимите си хора? Можеше ли да се воюва срещу добротата?

В пъстрото ветрило на месеците през годината всеки месец си знае към кое годишно време се числи и се държи подобаващо, всеки месец освен един - март.

all happy families resemble one another, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

First you meet someone—someone who is completely different from everyone around you. Someone who sees everything in a different light and forces you to shift, change your angle of vision, observe everything anew, within and without. You think you can keep a safe distance from him. You think you can navigate your way through this beautiful storm until you realize, much too suddenly, you are thrust out into the open and in fact, you control nothing.

She was the youngest of four girls who could not agree on anything but retained an identical conviction of always being right, and feeling each had nothing to learn from the others but lots to teach

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.

Od nje je naučio dvije osnovne stvari o ljubavi: prvo, da je, za razliku od onoga što romantici tako naduto tvrde, ljubav više postupan tijek nego iznenadni procvat na prvi pogled, i drugo, da je on sposoban voljeti.

The past is nothing but a shackle we need to get rid of. Such an excruciating burden. If only I could have no past - you know, if only I could be a nobody, start from point zero and just remain there forever. As light as a feather...

How on earth could she now tell Armanoush that, though only nineteen, she had known many men's hands and did not feel a speck of guilt for it? Besides, how could she ever reveal the truth without giving the wrong impression to an outsider about "the chastity of Turkish girls"? This kind of "national responsibility" was utterly foreign to Asya Kasancı. Never before had she felt part of a collectivity and was accomplishing a pretty good impersonation of someone else, someone who had gotten patriotic overnight. How could she now step outside her national identity and be her pure, sinning self?

لقد علقنا. لقد علقنا بين الشرق و الغرب. بين الماضي و المستقبل. فمن ناحية تجد أن العلمانيين العصريين يفتخرون بالنظام الذي أقاموه، ولا تستطيع أن تنتقدهم بكلمة واحدة، لأن الجيش و نصف الدولة يقف إلى جانبهم. و من الناحية الأخرى، هناك التقليديون المتمسكون بالتقاليد، المفتونين بالماضي العثماني، ولا يمكنك أن تنتقدهم بكلمة واحدة، لأن عامة الناس و النصف الآخر من الدولة يقفون إلى جانبهم. فماذا تبقى لنا؟

Нефритенозелените ѝ очи, обикновено широко отворени и изпълнени с пламенна интелигентност, от време на време се присвиваха и се превръщаха в две резки на пълно безразличие, присъщо само на три вида хора: безнадеждно лековерните, безнадеждно отчуждените и безнадеждно обнадеждените. Тъй като Зелиха не спадаше към никой от тях, безразличието ѝ - колкото и мимолетно да бе - бе трудно обяснимо. То прикриваше като с балдахин душата ѝ, за да я направи безчувствена като след упойка, но след миг се изпаряваше, оставайки Зелиха сама в тялото ѝ.

It was a modest, out-of-the-way place in downtown Tucson, the only shrine in America dedicated to the soul of a sinner, reported the historical plaque there. [...] He went there because that was the one holy place that didn't compel him to change into someone else in order to welcome him.

Once there was. Once there wasn't. A long, long time ago, in a land not so faraway, when the sieve was inside the straw, the donkey was the town crier,and the camel was the barber ... when I was older than my father so that I rocked his cradle upon hearing his cry ... when the world was upside down and time was a cycle that turned around and around so that the future was older than the past and the past was as pristine as newly sowed fields ... Once there was. Once there wasn't. God's creatures were as plentiful as grains and talking too much was a sin, for you could tell what you shouldn't remember and you could remember what you shouldn't tell....

Семейните истории се преплитат така, че каквото се е случило преди поколения, влияе върху наглед несвързани събития от днешния ден. Миналото е всичко друго, но не и отминало.

Matrimony might be a fleeting folly that tricked you into believing that it would be forever, but it was harder to appreciate the humor when you were not the one who ended it

If you have no interest in their answers, then do not ask questions.

The soul needs to shiver to wake up,

Sometimes, absence is actually a bond and distance can help you to look closer.

Lately she had decided to purge certain words from her vocabulary and now that she recalled that decision, why not start with the word shame.

Though books were potentially harmful, novels were all the more dangerous. The path of fiction could easily mislead you into the cosmos of stories where everything was fluid, quixotic, and as open to surprises as a moonless night in the desert. Before you knew it you could be so carried away that you could lose touch with reality—that stringent and stolid truth from which no minority should ever veer too far from in order not to end up unguarded when the winds shifted and bad times arrived. It didn’t help to be so naïve to think things wouldn’t get bad, for they always did. Imagination was a dangerously captivating magic for those compelled to be realistic in life, and words could be poisonous for those destined always to be silenced.

She envied them (the fishermen) for their capacity for stillness, this ability to wait for hours for fish that did not exist, or if they did, turned out to be so tiny that in the end they could only be used as bait for another fish that would never get caught. How amazing was this ability to achieve plenty by achieving little, to go home empty-handed yet still satisfied at the end of the day.

المعاصرون يطلبون منا أن نتقدم إلى الأمام، لكننا لا نؤمن بأفكارهم عن التقدم. و التقليديون يطلبون منا أن نعود إلى الوراء، لكننا لا نريد أن نعود إلى نظامهم المثالي إيضاً. إننا محصورون بين الأثنين، نتقدم خطوتين إلى الأمام و خطوة إلى الوراء، تماماً كما كانت تفعل فرق الجيش العثماني! حتى أننا لا نعزف على أي وتر! أين المفر؟ حتى أننا لسنا أقلية. فلو كنا أقليّة عرقية، أو شعباً من الشعوب الأصلية لأصبحنا تحت حماية ميثاق الأمم المتحدة، و عندها يمكن أن نحصل، على الأقل، على بعض الحقوق الأساسية. أما العدميون و المتشائمون و الفوضويون فلا يُعتبرون أقلية، بل أصبحنا نوعاً منقرضاً، و أخذ عددنا يقلّ يوماً بعد يوم. إلى متى يمكننا أن نبقى على قيد الحياة؟

Play now! Be friends!” Being of the same age group automatically meant getting along well; somehow peers were regarded as the broken pieces of the same puzzle, expected to suddenly make it complete when brought side by side.

Petite-Ma retained a most special place in Asya's heart. She loved her dearly. Unlike some others in the family, Petite-Ma had always been capable of loving without suffocating. She would never nag or nitpick or sting. Her protectiveness was not possessive.

Ето по какво дъждът приличаше на скръбта: правиш всичко възможно да не те засегне, да си останеш сух и невредим, но ако и когато не го постигнеш, настъпва миг, в който започваш да възприемаш дъжда не като капки, а като несекващ порой, и затова решаваш, че вече е все едно и можеш да се намокриш.

As soon as this stage was reached and the ex-love lost his or her appeal, those suffering from abiding heartache could finally let go of their obsession, for love loves power. That is why we can suicidally fall in love with others but can rarely reciprocate the love of those suicidally in love with us.

كان الشعور يراود أرمانوش في أن وراء اعتراض فارسنغ المتواصل على قراءتها انما يكمن في قلق بنيوي ان لم يكن في قلق بدائي: انه الخوف من البقاء حية, اذ لم ترغب في ظهورها براقة أكثر مما ينبقي أو أن تغرد خارج السرب, كان الشعراء و الأدباء و الفنانون و المثقفون أول الناس من ملة الأرمن الذي قضت عليهم الحكومة العثمانية السابقة. فقد تخلصت الحكومة أولا من ((العقول)) و بعدها مضت في طريقها لاخراج البقية_و هم عامة الناس. و كما هو شأن الكثير من الأسر الأرمنية في الشتات التي تشعر بالأمن و السلام هنا و لكنها تفتقر الى الراحة, فان اسرة جقماقجي كانت تشعر بالسرور و الانزعاج عندما تجد احد أبنائها يقرأ أكثر مما ينبقي و يفكر أكثر مما ينبغي و يبتعد كتيرا جدا عن كل ما هو اعتيادي.

There are things so awful in this world that the good-hearted people, may Allah bless them all, have absolutely no idea of. And that's perfectly fine, I tell you: it is all right that they know nothing about such things because it proves what good-hearted people they are. Otherwise they wouldn't be good, would they? But if you ever step into a mine of malice, it won't be one of these people you will ask help from.