Irfan Orga > Quotes

“My head was dizzy, but what of that? Float, stupid wooden head, and care nothing for tomorrow.”
― Irfan Orga, Portrait of a Turkish Family

“A whole new life at fifty, all because I had become entranced with both the Turkish culture and with Kazim—who one friend called a careening festival of a human being and another called an alcoholic Kurdish carpet salesman. I called him a catalyst.”
― Irfan Orga, Portrait of a Turkish Family

“There is something so elemental, so primeval about human tears that the sound of them causes ripples and tremors to course up and down the spine and through the bloodstream; and my own tears, that day, had just that effect upon me.”
― Irfan Orga, Portrait Of A Turkish Family

“We are the restless living, our names are not haloed by nostalgia.”
― Irfan Orga, Portrait Of A Turkish Family

“...perché anche una persona della stessa carne e dello stesso sangue può essere, crudelmente, del tutto inconsapevole del dolore che provoca.”
― Irfan Orga, Portrait of a Turkish Family

“A writer […] is poor in any country; he is only rich in spirit and in the satisfaction of having concluded an intellectual feat.”
― Irfan Orga, Portrait of a Turkish Family

“Soon we slid into the long length of the Black Sea, and the Bosporus with all its memories lay far behind. One bade it adieu, as regretful, as sentimental an adieu as though one would never again return to its blue waters.”
― Irfan Orga, Portrait Of A Turkish Family

“I wish I had the words to paint the strange enchantment of İzmir: the little crooked streets with their air of secrecy and squalor; the haphazard shops in the side ways; the open carriages and the noisy trams and the hooting of the boats, overriding all other sounds; the casinos fronting the harbor, with the never ending strains of music issuing from them; the hot sunlight and the blue sky and the golden sands, the tree-lined roads and the wistaria and bougainvillaea that hangs everywhere like a scented purple curtain.”
― Irfan Orga, Portrait Of A Turkish Family

“Ci sono certe cose, nel cuore, che non muoiono, e gli amori della prima infanzia sono gli amori più forti.”
― Irfan Orga

“Ma non è cosa oziosa dire che il cuore, l'animo e lo spirito di un bambino possono essere spezzati [...] L'amore può morire altrettanto facilmente, se non più amaramente, nel cuore di un bambino che in quello di un adulto.”
― Irfan Orga

“We reached the big rock fortress of Amasya; the slender charm of minarets came into view; and we halted by the wooden bridge on the Yeşil Irmak, a river that flows through the center of the city.”
― Irfan Orga, Portrait Of A Turkish Family