Istanbul Quotations

Istanbul is inspiring because it has its own code of architecture, literature, poetry, music.

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.

I found that the loudest fans in the world are in Istanbul.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

The kind of power mothers have is enormous. Take the skyline of Istanbul - enormous breasts, pathetic little willies, a final revenge on Islam. I was so scared I had to crouch in the bottom of the boat when I saw it

The kind of power mothers have is enormous.

If they say "you have your last chance to look at the world", I wish that look would from Çamlıca of Istanbul.

We are very pleased that our championship position has improved and are confident looking to Istanbul for the final round.

Again, a funny question. I said to you that Rubens is with us until the 31st of December, so does that mean I put Rubens with you in Istanbul not doing something and just for the pleasure of having him? No, he will drive and honestly he is doing a very good job. He's very motivated, very dedicated. We have been very fair to him and I'm expecting him to be very fair to Ferrari.

Interestingly, the Istanbul bid did not begin with the Turkish government or the mayor of Istanbul, but by groups of publicly spirited citizens.

The first thing I learned at school was that some people are idiots; the second thing I learned was that some are even worse.

Life can't be all that bad,' i'd think from time to time. 'Whatever happens, i can always take a long walk along the Bosphorus.

I think perhaps it is a generational thing. I talk to younger people and they say, Where is this melancholy city you talk about My Istanbul is a sunny place.

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.

To savour Istanbul's back streets, to appreciate the vines and trees that endow its ruins with accidental grace, you must, first and foremost, be a stranger to them.

National consciousness is truly a miraculous thing. When I am not in Turkey I feel even more Turkish than in Istanbul. But when I'm home my European side becomes more apparent.

Istanbul is certainly in the process of transforming itself into an attractive cultural, tourist and financial center. But there are also millions of sad stories in this giant sea of immigration, poverty, misery and contradictions. So much anger, frustration and fury.

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."

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.

He called me on the phone from Holland. He said he was in Istanbul a few days earlier but managed to escape.

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.

İstanbul is a magical seal which unites Europe and Asia since the ancient times. Without a doubt, Istanbul is certainly the most beautiful place of the world.

Holy Istanbul! Your name is the most enchanting one of all names which enchants me.

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

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.

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.

We're going to be the underdogs again in Istanbul on the 25th, but that suits us. (on the Champions league Final)

Beginning in 1939, there were events well to the east of Istanbul that seems to have started a progressive sequence to the west. The question is, will the sequence continue further ... Unfortunately, we think the answer is yes.

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