Ahmet Altan > Quotes

“از جان کُردها چه می‌خواهید؟
از جان این انسان‌ها که چه در طی حیات‌شان و چه هنگام مرگ‌شان، برایتان اهمیتی ندارند چه می‌خواهید؟
از آنها چه می‌خواهید؟
در واقع خواسته شما آشکار و مبرهن است؛ شما می‌خواهید که ارباب آنها و آنها نیز برده شما باشند

اما کُردها، برده نمی شوند! هرگز به این آرزوی‌تان نخواهید رسید!

با این خودخواهیتان، این تکبرتان و این خود بزرگ بینیتان، آنچنان تخم های نفرت را در دل کردها خواهید کاشت که اگر همچنان به آن ادامه دهید در این کشور جنگ هرگز پایان نمی یابد”
― Ahmet Altan

“You can imprison me but you cannot keep me here. Because, like all writers, I have magic. I can pass through your walls with ease.”
― Ahmet Altan, I Will Never See the World Again

“Hiçbir zaman başka bir insanı, o insan en yakınımız olsa bile, tümüyle tanıyamayacağımızı, iki insanın arasında daima görülemez karanlık alanların bulunacağını, iki insanın asla tam anlamıyla bütünleşemeyeceğini fark edip kendimizi bu dünyada yapayalnız hisseder; yüzünü gördüğümüz, sesini duyduğumuz, günlerce aylarca hatta yıllarca konuştuğumuz, birlikte en gizli zevkleri paylaştığımız birinin nasıl olup da bize yabancı olabildiğini anlayamamanın çaresizliğini yaşadık.”
― Ahmet Altan, Aldatmak

“Ölümden korktuğumuzdan değil yaşadığımız, biz savaşmayı sevdiğimizden yaşarız.”
― Ahmet Altan, Ve Kırar Göğsüne Bastırırken

“Encore sous le choc, nous étions en train de comprendre que faire ce que nous avions toujours fait pouvait désormais nous valoir une condamnation, qu'il suffisait d'une blague, d'un bon mot, d'une seule phrase, pour que la police déboule à l'aube et nous embarque. Face au vague et à l'immensité de cette menace nouvelle, il ne nous restait que la peur, une peur muette, collective.”
― Ahmet Altan, Madame Hayat

“The eternity of death has the power to trivialize even the most terrifying moments of life.”
― Ahmet Altan, I Will Never See the World Again

“They may have the power to imprison me but no one has the power to keep me in prison”
― Ahmet Altan

“On one side of this reality was a body made of flesh, bone, blood, muscle and nerve that was trapped. On the other side was a mind that did not care about that body and made fun of what would happen to it, a mind that looked from above at what was happening and at what was yet to happen, that believed itself untouchable and that was, therefore, untouchable.”
― Ahmet Altan, I Will Never See the World Again

“I was stuck in the corpse of a dead life.”
― Ahmet Altan, I Will Never See the World Again

“By simply putting away the mirrors, they had erased us from life...”
― Ahmet Altan, I Will Never See the World Again

“I am a writer.
I am neither where I am nor where I am not.
Wherever you lock me up I will travel the world with the wings of my infinite mind.
Besides, I have friends all around the world who help me travel, most of whom I have never met.
Each eye that reads what I have written, each voice that repeats my name holds my hand like a little cloud and flies me over the lowlands, the springs, the forests, the seas, the towns and their streets. They host me quietly in their houses, in their halls, in their rooms.
I travel the whole world in a prison cell.
[…]
I am writing this in a prison cell.
But I am not in prison.
I am a writer.
I am neither where I am nor where I am not.
You can imprison me but you cannot keep me here.
Because, like all writers, I have a magic. I can pass through your walls with ease.”
― Ahmet Altan, I Will Never See the World Again

“they may have the power to imprison me but no one has the power to keep me in prison”, because “wherever you lock me up I will travel the world with the wings of my endless mind … Like all writers, I have magic. I can pass through walls with ease.”
― Ahmet Altan

“In the heart of every writer there lies a murderer.
Writers spend their lives struggling to conceal this murderous desire from other mortals.
Like God, they ruthlessly destroy the people of their own creation, drag them from one cruelty to another, meting out punishment, and with the callous indifference of a serial killer. And no one knows when he has taken a life from the solitude of his room. But when a writer is enraged the walls of his refuge come crumbling down, revealing his true identity.”
― Ahmet Altan, Son Oyun

“suit of English cloth, sewn by French tailors, had done more to help him pull himself together than any of the medications he’d been given.”
― Ahmet Altan, Love in the Days of Rebellion

“Years ago, as I was wandering in that unmarked, enigmatic and hazy territory where literature touches life I had met my own destiny but failed to recognize it; I wrote thinking it belonged to someone else.”
― Ahmet Altan, I Will Never See the World Again

“sometimes it’s everything, sometimes it’s one thing that I miss . . . the look in your eye . . . your smile . . .”
― Ahmet Altan, Endgame

“Sometimes all the doors of a person’s soul open up to life like a cheap tavern that’s ready to accept anyone who passes by,”
― Ahmet Altan, Love in the Days of Rebellion

“Bazen geçmişte bazen gelecekte kaybolmak istiyorum. Hayatı, son bir beş dakika gibi, her dakikanın kıymetini bilerek yaşamak istediğimizde, saklamaya çalıştığımız, bastırdığımız bütün duygular ayaklanır. "Geniş zamanlarda" gizli yerlere kapatılmaya razı olsalar da, duygular bu kadar "dar ve kıymetli" bir zamanda yaşanmak, hissedilmek isterler. Hayatı o son beş dakika gibi yaşadığımızda, hayatın "son beş dakika" olduğuna karar verdiğimizde anlarız aslında kiminle olmak istediğimizi. Gerçek duygularımız, gerçek isteklerimiz, gerçek özlemlerimiz, gerçek ihtiraslarımız ortaya çıkar. O son beş dakikada kendinize ihanet edemezsiniz çünkü. Kendinize yalan söyleyemezsiniz orada. Ama hayatı son beş dakika gibi yaşayamazsınız. Bunu biliyorum. Ama ya öyle yaşasaydınız?”
― Ahmet Altan, Yabani Manolyalar

“As was the tradition, the bride was wearing four diamonds, one on her forehead, one in the hollow of each cheek, and one on her chin, and her large, gleaming, honey-coloured eyes shone among the diamonds like two slippery animals.”
― Ahmet Altan, Kiliç Yarasi Gibi

“Zamanla nasıl ödeşebilirim?”
― Ahmet Altan, Kristal Denizaltı

“Standing in the doorway was young girl with the boldness and purity of those who don’t have a relationship with life, whose strong upbringing led her to conceal her arrogance and whose indifference and untouchability were more impressive than her beauty.”
― Ahmet Altan, Love in the Days of Rebellion

“In The Divine Comedy, Dante’s depiction of the Inferno is more intense and dramatic than his narrative on Paradise. Dante cannot help but imagine himself torturing the dwellers of hell. Here are the literary grounds for my suspicion that what we expect from God is not so much that he accept us into his heaven but that he send our enemies to hell.”
― Ahmet Altan, I Will Never See the World Again

“I realized once more than when you are faced with a reality that you can turn your life upside down, that same sorry reality will sweep you away like a wild flood only if you submit to it and act as it expects you to.”
― Ahmet Altan, Ich werde die Welt nie wiedersehen: Texte aus dem Gefängnis

“I believe ideas should not give birth to the novel, but the novel should give birth to ideas.”
― Ahmet Altan, Ich werde die Welt nie wiedersehen: Texte aus dem Gefängnis

“I talk all day with people who are seen and heard by no one, people who don’t exist and won’t exist until the day I mention them … As I don’t want to put them on paper in prison, I inscribe all of this into the crannies of my mind with the dark ink of memory.”
― Ahmet Altan

“you remember telling me that in your life you kept the light on in a place that was mine? . .”
― Ahmet Altan, Endgame

“I talk all day with people who are seen and heard by no one, people who don’t exist and won’t exist until the day I mention them. I listen as they converse among themselves. I live their loves, their adventures, their hopes, worries and joys. I sometimes chuckle as I pace the courtyard, because I overhear their rather entertaining conversations. As I don’t want to put them on paper in prison I inscribe all of this into the crannies of my mind with the dark ink of memory.”
― Ahmet Altan

“I am a writer.
I am neither where I am not where I am not.
Wherever you lock me up I will travel the world with the wings of my infinite mind.
Besides, I have friends all around the world who help me travel, most of whom I have never met.
Each eye that reads what I have written, each voice that repeats my name holds my hand like a little cloud and flies me over the lowlands, the springs, the forests, the seas, the towns and their streets. They host me quietly in their houses, in their halls, in their rooms.
I travel the whole world in a prison cell.
[…]
I am writing this in a prison cell.
But I am not in prison.
I am a writer.
I am neither where I am nor where I am not.
You can imprison me but you cannot keep me here.
Because, like all writers, I have a magic. I can pass through your walls with ease.”
― Ahmet Altan, I Will Never See the World Again

“The small runes on the paper came alive and gleamed as soon as you laid eyes on them; they metamorphosed from one shape to another, transforming themselves into unknown cities, narrow streets, steep rocks, deserts and palaces. They sprinkled you with drops of magic water and you too were transformed. You became Peter Pan, you became Le Chevalier de Pardaillan, you became Arsène Lupin, you became Sherlock Holmes, you became Ivanhoe, you became Lancelot.
I spent the years of my childhood playing with the wood spirits. I got used to having them always around me as they slept in between pages, ready to wake and start dancing as soon as I opened a book. I loved watching them even in their sleep.
One thing I found most difficult in prison was to live in a place where there were no books.”
― Ahmet Altan, I Will Never See the World Again

“I had surrounded and extinguished the fire of terror, which life had lit in a cage, with the fire of death.”
― Ahmet Altan, I Will Never See the World Again